The sensation of home

According to the International Migrant Stock 2019 the UN revealed that the number of migrants worldwide has risen by almost a quarter since the beginning of the decade. By 2019, there were 272 million immigrants, 51 million more than in 2010. Over two fifths of all international migrants worldwide in 2019 had been born in Europe (61 million) or in Central and Southern Asia (50 million). So how does this affect the sense of home? Is home where you come from or the place you go? I ask what home means to someone who never lived where one comes from and if home is even a place to locate.

I believe the search of home is deeply connected with the search of oneself, because someone does not always belong where someone started. While for some people the importance lays in the past, for others it is located in the future. Taiye Selasi (writer and photographer) asked a very interesting question during her TED Talk : “What are we seeking when we ask where someone comes from? And what are we seeing when we hear the answer?” We are much more than where we are from. Identity is something triggered by the outside but created by the inside. So when the focus shifts from looking for a locality towards creating a relation, home can be defined as the sum of all experiences which brought one closer to oneself. Home is then no longer on the outside but much more on the inside.

In conclusion, home can be where we come from. It also can be where we go. But by stopping movement, we can not only find the way home but also realise that home is where we are, because home is within.

The exhibiton is addressing artists who challenge the essence of home and reflect on the aspects of existence including ‘rituals, relationships and restrictions’ (cf. Taiye Selasi). Focussing on both praise and critical reflection, „The sensation of home” invites the artists as well as the audience to examine multiple alternatives and unexpected perspectives. What is the aesthetic of home? What does home mean in our multicultural and international societies? And what answers are coming from the artists of our time?