Harte Zeiten – Ciężkie Czasy
Simone Rueß (2021). de-re-konstrukt – "Lass uns von vorne beginnen...", pp. 98-107
Simone Rueß (2021). de-re-konstrukt – "Lass uns von vorne beginnen...", pp. 98-107
People with experiences of flight and migration often create a new home in temporary forms of housing such as container villages. At the same time, they remain connected to their homeland through memories and contacts with those “back home,” while seeking ways to live out their cultural everyday needs.
In a workshop at Kunsthalle Tübingen, I invited participants from Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Nigeria, and Pakistan to share memories of a home, to explore mental images of their current (hybrid) home, and to imagine visions of a future form of living. These individual ideas were captured in a collective large-scale drawing and documented in a video – both as a creative process and as a vision of communal life.
In addition, together with the participants, we explored their inner images of home in narrative interviews, which I then translated into drawings. In this way, mental spatial images emerged that make visible both personal sensitivities, hybird identities and the socio-spatial conditions of refugees.
In 2018, I collected mental images of home in my INhabit project with the help of around 60 narrative interviews from Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Israel, the Czech Republic, Germany, Thailand, etc. During the lockdown, for many „home“ became a home office. Professional and private activities all took place in the same place. In 2020, I juxtapose the mental images from 2018 with new conversations with the same interviewees. These are presented on posters at bus stops during the festival in the public space „ADAPTACJE"
in Gorzów Wielkopolskie (2021), curated by Marta Gendera.
Home is the central place from which our everyday activities start and return. In the INhabit project, I explore what ideas individuals actually have about home. In conversations, I ask people to describe their individual mental images of “home” and then transform them into drawings. The constantly growing collection of images of the most diverse perceptions of “home” includes around 60 interviews with people from Italy, Holland, Belgium, Israel, the Czech Republic, Germany, Thailand etc. The conversations on which the drawings are based took place live in the exhibition 999: A Collection of Questions on Contemporary Living, 201. During the Covid pandemic, I was gradually contacting the interviewees again in 2020 in order to follow the changes in their ideas as a result of the lockdown.
The exhibition 999: A Collection of Questions on Contemporary Living was a "sweeping investigation of the concept of house and home, living and dwelling, on the borderline between the physical and digital worlds." It was concepted as an ever-changing exhibition, which evolved in space and time "through communities, companies, activists, schools, multinational corporations, informal groups, research centres, designers, and artists. The exhibition was conceived and curated by Stefano Mirti and took place at La Triennale di Milano from 12 January to 2 April 2018. As an artist-in-residence at BASE Milano, I was invited to contribute to this show with the participative project INhabit during within 3 weeks.
A. A. is a writer and dentist born in Deir Ezzor, Syria. He grew up in the Ar Raqqa region, which is characterized by a cultural and linguistic intermingling. In Damascus he pursued his studies and his profession. After a short stay in Mauritania, A. A. left Syria forever in 2013 and fled to Germany via Beirut (2015). In 2018, his family came to Germany. After successful language courses and medical exams, A. A. works now in Berlin as a dentist.
With A. A., we had our first space/biography conversation in 2016. Later we met again in 2021, 2022 and 2023. In continuing conversations we reflected on the changes in spatial biographical perceptions, . In this drawing series from 2023, we can follow reflexions on relations between memories and the feeling of home, the language and translocal and transnational social spaces.
W roku 2018 Simone Rueß przeprowadziła blisko 60 rozmów narracyjnych z osobami z Włoch, Holandii, Belgii, Izraela, Niemiec, Polski, Tajlandii i innych krajów. Po rozmowie artystka wizualizuje za pomocą rysunku wyobrażenia domu swoich rozmówców. W roku 2020 Simone Rueß skonfrontowała te wypowiedzi z doświadczeniem pandemii, dokumentując jak zmienia się postrzeganie przestrzeni domowej w izolacji na całym świecie (tekst: Marta Gendera)
2018, Adele Giacoia related the city Rome with the meaning of home and described it as a large, open labyrinth structure of books that you can walk through. 2020, the same city, Rome, was still connected with the meaning of „home“, but now Adele Giacoia created a mental image of a DNA-like structure, where you could only walk through mentally with the help of your memory.
Inhabit 2018/2020: During my residency and exhibition at the Triennale di Milano, 2018, I collected, in the form of narrative interviews, over 60 mental images of home, from people from Europe, Taiwan, Israel, etc. During the pandemic lockdown 2020, for many people, the home became the home office. Professional and private activities took all place in the same place. I met my interviewees of 2018 again, this time virtually, and I asked for their current mental image of home in times of pandemic lockdown. Transformed into drawings, the contrasts between the ideas of home from 2018 and 2020 are presented on posters at bus stops during the festival in public space "Adaptacje" in Gorzów Wielkopolskie, 2021.
