What is the meaning of 'the home'? What is the relationship between the house and its inhabitants? How is the house organised, appropriated and lived? Which interior and exterior places define it? Where do different 'homes' overlap and how do such places look like?
Since 2012, twenty families from different corners of Brussels, Belgium come together to prepare a new housing project. The families met each other through Community Land Trust Brussels, an organisation that develops participative housing for underprivileged groups. The housing project, which will be constructed in Molenbeek, will contain 32 apartments, collective facilities and an interior garden.
In order to get to know more about the meaning of the 'home' for the families, Nele Aernouts and Sofie van der Linden visited the families in their houses. Nele Aernouts interviewed the families about what they (dis)liked about their house, the relationships with their neighbours, the place and frequency of encounters and acts of reciprocity. She asked the families to take pictures of the places they use the most within and around the dwelling. During the interviews, Sofie van der Linden observed the architecture of the houses, the layout of the interiors, as well as decorations and objects in the room. For each family she transformed these observations in a comprehensive image. The interviews, pictures and drawings lead to a series of 'micro-stories', representing the way the 'home' is lived by the families in multiple ways.
(text by Nele Aernouts)
2015
series of 8 drawings
various dimensions
(pictures taken during festivities on the lot where the new apartments will be build -
17th October 2015)