ONLINE DOSSIER: THEASTER GATES

All images from Theaster Gates' website.

Theaster Gates talkes about what “home” means to him. That it is more than just the house he lives in but the whole neighborhood. 

Thinking about “home” could be relevant to my project. I am taking pictures of the house I live in. I have to be in this house almost 24/7 during this lockdown period. And that makes me think of people that do not have roof over their head in this time.

But “home” describes so much more than a building. It is (probably) also the place where you feel safest, most comfortable, can relax. And the place where you feel that you belong, take off all the layers of acting and pretending. Where you can be intimate or hide away.

Where you know the neighbors, everyday life and “come home” to.

Even though I have lived in Melbourne now for more than a year, deep down it does not feel like home to me. I call the building home but Melbourne is not my hometown.

I especially realized that at the start of the lockdown, when I (briefly) felt extremely insecure and vulnerable. Coming to Melbourne, I always had the one thought in the back of my head “If I don't like it, I can go back anytime and it will take me roughly 24 hours to be back where I come from.” That did not work anymore as soon as there were no flights going out of the country anymore and I actually had to commit to my new home.