I am forever fascinated with the domestic landscape. My understanding of my own limited perspective of this disintegrates the closer I get, like a mirage or a horizon line affected by the blue of distance. Our concept of home is flawed but we can no longer see the facade of the home, of safety, of shelter - “no one sees the barn.” To what degree have those adhering to shelter-in-place and stay-at-home orders considered how the pandemic, systemic racism, and the culture of white supremacy affects those who have no home within which to shelter? Have oppressive practices slowed - of gentrification, of environmentally destructive land-use, of displacement, of enacting and enforcing laws which punish the conduct of necessary, life-sustaining activities in public, even when many people have no other option? Certainly not, in fact, these practices have become increasingly insidious.
These hopeful houses and their environments, made from my own and others’ trash, remind us that beyond a hierarchy of location, facade, and finishing, that many homes are constructed with the same studs and similar materials. The difference between public housing and “urban loft condos” is a negligible sum, and materials are commonly chosen intentionally to emphasize a politicized value proposition. Imperfect little landscapes, references to comfort constructed from industrial materials designating hierarchies of class and access surround these homes - asking us to consider what then, other than generational wealth, separates those with homes and those without?