Sophie Hermann, HOMEstead (2015), Tissue paper, tape, liquid chalk, stainless steel wire & fixings
Sophie Hermann: HOMEstead
21 October, 2015 - 29 November, 2015
Little Gallery
“For more and more of us, home has really less to do with a piece of soil than, you could say, with a piece of soul.”
Sophie Hermann, HOMEstead (2015), Tissue paper, tape, liquid chalk, stainless steel wire & fixings
(Pico Iyer, “Where is Home?” talk presented at the TED conference TEDGlobal, Edinburgh, Scotland, June 2013).
Essayist and novelist, Pico Iyer, having lived amongst multiple cultures (Indian, English, American, Japanese), is well known for his writings on home, identity and displacement. What characterises home? Home as dwelling, as place, as belonging, as family, as country, are multiple facets of this concept. So how do we navigate these diverse definitions, rendered even more complex when we have more than one ‘home’? Is home a specific place (or places), or is there a broader perspective? Iyer’s response to this reflects an element of contemplation: home in his definition is less concerned with the physical or the tangible, and seems more suggestive of the soul. Consequently, an appropriate artistic response to home and place as plural may need to address the human spirit.
HOMEstead is a site-specific installation proposed for the Little Gallery, in the Pah Homestead. There have been various occupancies here over the years: private residence, orphanage, novitiate, boarding school, emergency housing; and with these, multiple inhabitants, some of whom may have referred to here as ‘home’, while others may not have had such strong connections.
HOMEstead proposes a temporary space made up of over 100 sheets of suspended tissue paper within which one may contemplate the original historic construction, and reflect upon the lives of those who lived here previously. Notions of ‘substitute home’ are suggested in the title of this installation. How does one approach the idea of ‘home’ here in this place? Perhaps as Iyer suggests, the concept of home is something more ethereal and immaterial than we usually tend to think. The act of moving, of relocating, of resettling, are often stressful, busy times; correspondingly there must also be room for moments of contemplation, of thought, of deeper inquiry. Perhaps this element of silence and rest and repose is as important to find as the element of movement and displacement. They may seem at odds with each other, but we could conceive them as intertwined: in order to appreciate silence we must have had noise and rapid change; in order to make important decisions, these would have been pondered during moments of thoughtfulness and quiet. They are indeed complementary and necessary, evoking the idea of an object or space poised in a potential moment of displacement, or captured in a still moment between movements.
HOMEstead’s ‘space-for-one’ carved out within the layers of tissue paper draws upon architectural references, exploring contrasts of light and shadow, permanence and transition, shelter and refuge, migration and settlement, belonging and welcome, past and present, home and place. This installation proposes a temporary contemplative space in which to consider the personal stories and memories of those who inhabited these spaces before us and our relationship, belonging and engagement with the art and architecture of the Pah Homestead.