‘Home’

This week I wanted to revisit a project I delivered in 2010 in Redbridge, London. I’ve just started a residency on the Marks Gate estate in Barking & Dagenham for 6 months and this project seemed really pertinent to me as I began meeting and talking to people on the estate. ‘Home’ was the culmination of a online participatory project with local residents in Redbridge, exploring notions of home and language I interviewed 100 people over the course of a month, asking them the following questions:

1. What or where do you call home?

2. What does home mean to you?

3. How does home make you feel?

4. Is this what home should be?

The responses collectively made up a sculptural video installation entitled ‘Home’. As a viewer you could interact with the installation and read these answers.

As I start my residency on Marks Gate, similar questions are arising, Marks Gate is home to an indigenous community that has lived there a very long time and will continue to do so, and now there is also a transient community who are arriving, and staying for a short time and then moving on. This makes me think again about the nature of the place/ space that you call ‘home’ and what that means to you. I look forward to investigating this further.