I
am not quite sure where my home is, I am not even sure about where the
heart is. For me, home is always in present. As a metaphor of survival
(Bhaba, 1997), home is not just in present, it is a continuity; the
past, present, and endless.
This
project is an effort of visual preservation about a house. I attempt to
recall its every details as an effort of surviving existence, surviving
the locus where those memories are kept and survived, surviving its
past, present, and endless changes.
This project itself is also a metaphor of survival.
When
I came back to this particular house, it is impossible not to notice
the changes. The house and its current residents have made its own
method of survival; the TV got bigger, the furniture got more numbers,
it got more crowds, more members, there are more things blocked the
stairs, the upstairs looked more abandoned, and dust grows on every
corner. Yet, there are also several things that remain the same, mostly
on the upper areas.
The
wall on the upstairs has different paint since it is quite impossible
to reach the higher wall. It used to be same color, but since there are
some difficult areas to reach and to put renewal paint on it, also
considering the leak that (may) damage wall, we silently decide not to
renew the paint on the upper areas. The paint that never touched the
upstairs make me realize that the house made its own effort to survive.
Those unchanged parts keep some historical and memorial artifact of past
condition of the house. Well, those parts sometimes help me noticing
the changes happened in my absences.
In
a distance, it often comes to my mind that even the heart still
wanders, memories are buried and found somewhere in the house.
Arif Furqan, 2016.
