statement |
|
Carry On strips the home to its most common denominator. Our social structure is focused on the house, the center of family activity. Home is the accumulation of personal traces and memories embodied in some treasured possessions. Socially, the loss of a house signifies complete dispossession and disaffiliation from community ties. Yet, does not the need for home extend beyond personal circumstances to encompass every human being? Is it possible to contain the home in a suitcase, a bag or a shopping cart in the absence of a dwelling? Does becoming houseless necessarily make us homeless? These questions are not without consequence: they force us to redefine the boundary between the private and the public spheres. People whose home is the streets use areas shared with others, public areas, for their personal activities. Tension builds when those with a home are confronted with private actions carried out in the public domain. House-owners perceive this as an excessive use of shared territory caving into the space to which they are entitled. public versus private Social psychologists define humans as territorial animals. We compete each day to guard our private territory and demand access to the public area shared with others. From home to work we constantly protect and claim our space. Furthermore, some territories are transitional, that is, the barrier between public and private is blurred. Under certain circumstances, some such spaces could be the car, the suitcase, and the living room area. This daily negotiation between private and public constitutes a major human preoccupation. This negotiation has become our artistic concern. Lyman and Scott define four types of human territories: public, home, interactional and body territories (Ward, p.23). Home territories are "areas where the regular participants have a relative freedom of behavior and a sense of intimacy and control over the area." (Ward, p.23) These are zones where outsiders have minimal interference (Ward, p. 34). In contrast, public territory are "(t)hose areas where the individual has freedom of access but not necessarily of action." (Ward, p. 25) The actions allowed within the public (and even private) terrain are regulated by actual laws and internalized principles that are the accepted code of behavior, subject to cultural variants. The presence of the unhoused is a source of discomfort because he or she is perceived to have broken the code of conduct. As Ward says the houseless individual is seen as "a direct threat to the socio-economic system that structures our daily existence in the modern western world." (Ward. p.8) An interesting psychological phenomenon emerges from the interaction between the mainstream individual, the houseless person and the corporate body. Perhaps because the housed do not deal with developers on a personal plane, they do not feel a direct threat from the latter's purchase of large areas of public space. The unhoused individual, on the other hand, does pose a psychological challenge to property users, by misappropriating common areas for private activities. home turf Ward discusses the existence of specific places in cities where the unhoused tend to congregate. Pearl Street Mall, in Boulder, is a case in point. This is the space the dispossessed individual calls his or her "home territory," a space in which the person feels protected and relatively safe (Ward, p.22). In these locations, the accepted laws of public behavior can be temporarily broadened and a personal space for private interactions can be claimed. Of course, daily encounters with the police show that these areas are not a hundred percent safe. We believe that home, can be a territory, a place of origin, memories, life traces, and/or a person's only private space. This inclusive conceptualization of home, that encompasses both a physical territory and a sentimental or emotional dimension, is essential to maintaining a level of dignity and humanity for all individuals. Home is necessary to feel an affiliation to society. methodology The material for Carry On is gathered from interviews with houseless individuals in Boulder and New York. Our interview includes questions such as "name five objects that make home", "what do you carry with you at all times?" and "do you consider yourself homeless?" The catalogue of significant experiences, objects and places defines the ingredients that make up each person's conceptualization of home. Those objects that come up most frequently during the interviews are those presented in the exhibit. conclusion Carry On expands the concept of home by differentiating it from that of shelter. It actively involves a population that is traditionally not addressed in the arts. Individual voices and personal stories are portrayed. Audience identification with these voices helps to characterize homelessness as an issue of social concern to which all are vulnerable, rather than as an individual conflict. Bibliography Ward, J. The Street is their Home: The Hobo's Manifesto |