Visitor

November 26, 2022

Visitor is a series of documentary photographs taken at my paternal grandfather’s house in West Chester, OH, that examines the concept of ‘home’ from the perspective of an ‘outsider’. As someone who moved periodically between Europe and the United States throughout childhood, adolescence and adulthood, my experience of ‘home’ was far from ordinary. My relationship to ‘home’ was defined more by otherness than belonging. The closest thing I knew to home was my grandparent’s house in the quiet hills of southern Ohio, where my family spent the summer months most years.

I approached this examination of ‘home’ through documentary photography which elicits a quality of detached objectivity and emotional distance. From plush carpeting, walls crowded with family photographs that span generations, bookshelves brimming with menageries of porcelain figurines, family heirlooms, and souvenirs, to my late-grandmother’s make-up and pill bottles collecting dust on dresser-tops and side-tables, the images chronicle dimly lit rooms, winding hallways, unremarkable alcoves and entrance-ways that make up my father’s childhood home. 

This documentative approach surveys the physical spaces and objects that make us feel a sense of belonging. By recording my observations as an impartial observer, the images of document distinctly intimate spaces yet give the impression of foreignness to reflect my personal relationship with the notion of belonging.