The home functions as a container as it separates what’s public into private space. I’m curious how the intermediate space of home and personal possessions and the meaning we place on them factor into daily identity and sense of self. What is the role of ritual, memory, and affect? And how does the exterior space outside home--the larger culture, human systems, and material objects we encounter influence and even root within the home?
In New Domesticity I am digging into how home and our roles are thought about while critiquing modes of representation historically of the home through advertising, television, and movies. I am actively asserting less-represented stories into the photographic canon. I am interested in the negotiation of the home space, how people are considering home and their roles in it, and the intersection between overarching cultural ideas and personal manifestations of home.
Though I am photographing a large selection of people I make a point of representing queer individuals and families as I’m very interested in their relationship to the home and domesticity. As in my own family, I have found a queering and subversion of the home space because of deliberately having to choose our roles rather than falling into the heteronormative gendered traditions. Furthermore, there is a long history of the private space of the home providing both refuge and safety to the queer community. The home is a space for potential where our most inner beings are nurtured, developed, examined, and satisfied.
To hear a short excerpt of the audio installation Domiciliary please visit:
https://soundcloud.com/loisb-2/discussing-domesticity