Home away from home

What is home? Is it a place? Is it the people around you? Or is it the objects that you carry with you to make your home. When does the new country start to ‘feel’ like home? These are some of the questions I am trying to investigate through my photographs.

This photo essay presents glimpses of eight homes of expats living in the Netherlands. In this increasingly mobile world, people are moving away from their place and country of birth (homeland) to new locations, this displacement brings changes in cultural identity and traditional concept of ‘home’. The photo essay helps to provide clues to elements retained from previous cultures, and elements assimilated/adopted/accepted over time. Some of the expats have lived in multiple countries, hence making the concept of ‘home’ more abstract, while others have lived in the Netherlands for so long that this is ‘home’, and their house is the only ‘home’.

The photo essay intends to be like an informal introduction, to build trust and start conversations between communities. Expats very often would like to interact more with the locals, and the locals would like the expats to be more integrated… hence the need for conversations about culture and home are important for both to feel comfortable.

The exhibiton is at De Meerse, part of ‘Het Cultuurgebouw’ Raadhuisplein, Hoofddorp, from 31^st May to 7^th August.

Indira Barve’s research interests involve design, education, narratives through design and space, cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural aspects of design, as well how design is exhibited in museums today. She is interested in projects and collaborations which question the boundaries we have created around the disciplines of art, design, architecture and culture studies.

If you would like to be part of the conversation, or don’t mind having your home photographed, do get in touch with me,  indira.barve@gmail.com.