Home Sweet Home, Diana Jabi
September 24 – November 6, 2016
Curator: Abir Boukhari
Artists: Al Fadhil, Muhammad Ali, Nisrine Boukhari, Aissa Deebi, Mafune Gonjo, Cecilia Hultman, Diana Jabi, Elena Luptak,Alfredo De Stefano and Laura Tynan.
A person’s home is the place where he or she normally abides. The word «home» is often used to mean a sense of belonging, of safety and a sense of security, of memories and hope and as the shelter of our future and our dreams.
We can think of a house as a place adapted to its inhabitants: becoming the nest of the past, the present and also the place where they continue to plan for tomorrow. However, what happens when the sense of home is ruptured? How does this affect our capacity to preserve the past, construct the future, belong to a place and keep our identity? What does it mean to «feel at home» or «not to feel at home»?
Do we need to have this stability to be able to flourish in our life or might losing it force us to become somehow more creative in order to survive? Will it help us discover the essence of life and reward us with a new definition for our existence?
Today, the experience of having «nohome» is increasing in the world, more and more people are being forced to leave their countries due to war, conflict, or because of economic pressures. Others decide to leave in the hope to obtain a better future while some people find new meaning by choosing to live in a nomadic state.
Do they follow the words of Baudelaire who believes that «to be away from home and yet to feel everywhere at home» or do they agree with Gaston Bachelard›s thoughts «I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”
Abir Boukhari