Homeplace – A Love Letter
In conversation with Matri-Archi

I can’t say either or, because I think there’s something really interesting about the way in which we read homeplace as a prompt to think about some sort of construction in cultural belonging that is not fixed in time, pace, or form. So, in a way I think that that space in the rotunda that we activated demanded a certain kind of negotiation, as the curtain did. We got super excited about the curtain as an archetype, not only because it’s something that’s familiar to all of us in the geographies that we’re from and call home, but because it’s also a sort of tenuous and sensitive archetype that offers room for choice. You can see someone approaching the curtain, because it’s normally not completely opaque. If it is opaque visually, audibly it still suggests when someone walks in. These were really interesting design prompts for us to consider the form of the curtain itself.

Unlike a door which only has a shadow when it’s open, the curtain always has a shadow. It’s also very thin and tenuous, and doesn’t have a lock, which becomes this set of negotiations and relations that one has to work through. [Where the curtain divides the kitchen from the living space and] there is a productive gossip happening in the kitchen, a decision is made by the people there to either open up that gossip to whoever they see is approaching through that curtain, or safeguard that information by completely changing the logic of the conversation in that room. In that way, [with the curtain Homeplace,] there was always a public component to it in that it offered an entrypoint to those who might have been familiar with it, could see, or approach it. But there was also a private-facing component that safeguarded it from being tampered with, co-opted, and interrupted. It maintained it as some sort of safe space, if you like, but of course that was always fluid and moving.

You’re right in pointing to this oscillation between communal publicness and private introspection, between being together and turning inward. What held Homeplace together was not a single idea of home, but four different ways of arriving at it, with each asking for something slightly different from us. It felt significant that this movement runs through the four elements we introduce that speak to the multi-sensory experience of the exhibition. First, the beaded curtains; second, the imbizo benches — a key figure among many African traditions; third, the newspaper; and, finally, the soundscape. Rather than relying on a singular participatory logic, the work was shaped by these coexisting modes held in relation to one another.

While the imbizo allowed for co-presence without obligation as one could sit together, quietly or in conversation, the newspaper introduced circulation. Unlike the curtain, which marked a durational threshold, or the act of sitting together, which happened in the moment, the newspaper we developed with graphic designers and illustrators Sherida Kuffour and Jehane Yazami was meant to move. Its temporarility is different as it extends Homeplace beyond the exhibition space and into other contexts and conversations. The soundscape we commissioned from Kenyan sound artist Kalemela, on the other hand, offered the most intimate form of encounter as it was played through headphones. It drew listeners inward and asked for a different kind of attention. These four modalities together do not necessarily resolve whether Homeplace is public or private alone, but keep that question open. Each one carries a different way of being with others: approaching, sitting, carrying, listening. None claim the final word. In this sense, the work is likely less about leaving a public or private space behind and more about noticing how easily the two move and thread into one another and how much care is needed to navigate what lies in between.

I think this is why the newspaper is so important. It was so important to us to have something that reflected realities beyond ourselves by reflecting the realities of various writers and thinkers who have continuously contested with the notion of home. And for me, it was about making sure we got all those voices into something tangible. The exhibition will come and go and we will remain with the feelings, but we had to make sure there was a takeaway that people could pass on between one another, between lovers, between friends, enemies, colleagues. It is something that will live beyond us and we don’t know whose hands it’s going to fall into, but perhaps it falling into someone’s hands would give it that solace and comfort that it might be seeking outside the rotunda.

What the newspaper and the soundscape hold for me in particular is how the voices and texts gathered allowed us to segway into the ambivalence and contradiction you’re pointing to. As Aisha said, the newspaper assembled writers that contest home from many positions, tracing the ambivalence between its comforts and its violences without resolving it. The soundscape moved alongside this differently: through fragments of memory, grief, but also humour. And in staying with that tension, neither of the formats flattened home into sanctuary or suffering alone, but instead, offered space to sit with and recognize its multi-layered complexity and reality. And I think this is crucial to think about home not as a fixed place, but as something that is continually practiced, rehearsed, and mediated over time — to echo Khensani.

I don’t think home is the only place where the logic of time can be interrupted. But I think to think about time is to think about place, and the homeplace. Maybe it’s a personal insertion, but I think that it offers a different understanding of pace. Essential to recovery and restoration is the understanding of slowness. It’s a refusal to adhere to the fastness and the pace of life outside of the homeplace, which often contorts us in ways that makes life unlivable, and forces us to labour in ways that perhaps are not desired. The homeplace which is set up on relations and manifests in fellowship and commune with others, is therefore set on a series of rituals, ceremonies, behaviours that constitute their own pace. That is something I find special. It’s very difficult though, because is that something that can be articulated spatially? Yes. But can it be articulated as a fixed space? I’m not quite sure. I think this is also what our space did. It was not fixed in that regard.