A Place Called Home
Home is any place in the world that holds sentimental value to both humans and animals. Whether we live in a house or are nomads, we depend on the natural world to help develop a strong attachment to build places that we call home. A Place Called Home was derived from the idea that home can be anywhere that humans deem safe but it is thanks to the sacrifices of the land that we are able to build these homes.
This project is centered around human experiences in natural environments. I created a collection of portraits that focused on how humans interact with one another or with themselves on public land. The purpose of this project is to showcase how humans are interconnected to nature through our emotions and experiences.
Each look represents either an emotion or an experience that is related to my memories that was played out and interpreted by my family. Through this project, I want to show that humans of color are allowed to take space on public lands and that we experience similar human emotions and experiences just like White people.
This project is heavily inspired by Dr. Carolynn Finney’s essay, There’s No Place Like Home.
CHILDREN AT HEART
Nature is curious, constant, and beautiful. Nature gives humans spaces to heal, discover, and live a life that is filled with meaningful experiences and emotions. Nature is playful and it allows us to reawaken a part of ourselves that adults put away due to growing up.
CHILDREN AT HEART puts emphasis that no matter what adults experience in their lifetimes, nature allows us to take up space to heal our inner child. It allows us to be curious and to explore the memories, experiences, and emotions that we were not allowed to experience when we were kids.
This look was reenacted by Xee, Pheng, Nana, Xen, and Tri where they are captured eating their favorite childhood Asian snacks along with wearing an outfit that their kid self use to wear.
In my memories, I spent my summer youth/girlhood at my local park in Sacramento, CA. As a kid, I didn’t process the importance of these urban nature spaces that was accessible to people of all backgrounds. I just knew that it was a place to have fun and to hang out with my friends and family. Now that I’m an adult, I am mindful about these spaces and take my time to just be present in all the beauty that these urban spaces offer me.
S A D N E S S
Every summer as a teenager, I would stay up the whole night to see the sunrise. When I went walking around the park, I would sometimes sit and look at the sunset. During some nights when I wondered about where I was going in life, I would look at the moon and feel at ease. It wasn’t until my early 20’s when I started learning about mental health and the magical unspoken healing powers that nature had over me. I didn’t realize that during all the ups and downs of my teenage life, I looked towards the moon and sun to calm the uneasiness in my heart.
The most profound moment when I realized nature can heal sadness was when I was sexually assaulted at the age of 23. That summer, I went on a trip to Glacier National Park with my family and on the last day of the trip, as per my usual custom, I woke up to see the sunrise. As I sat on the shoreline of Lake McDonald and watched the sun shine through the trees, I wrote in my journal. I talked about my sexual assault and how hurt and scared I was. I wrote about how much emotional, mental, and physical torture I put myself through dealing with the aftermath of finding out that I was sexually assaulted. It was during the early beams of that sunrise and the soft gentle swooshing of the lake that I found that my sadness was valid. I felt that I have finally learned to forgive myself for my sexual assault and at that moment, I felt safe with myself.
Through this experience and every traumatic experience afterward, I learned to escape into nature to better understand my sadness and hurt. SADNESS is about how nature gave me the time and space to feel all the sadness that I didn’t allow myself to feel.
(Reenacted by Kia)
N O I S E
When I have too many thoughts and become too overwhelmed by my daily life, I put my headphones on and zone out. I look up towards the sky and just think about everything and nothing at the same time. Time moves all the same but the things that I worry about seem mundane and insignificant.
NOISE is a play on the noisiness of capitalism and the colonialism of hustle life. I want to capture how we can afford to slow down, take a breather, and enjoy the sounds of nature (or music) around us as much as we want without having to rush.
(Reenacted by Xen)
M E M O R I E S
My earliest memory of being out in nature would be when I was a child in Sacramento, CA. I remember my sister and I sitting in a mound of dirt moulding it to represent a car and burying the pincher bugs that came from each scoop of dirt that we used to build these cars. I remember playing in the sprinklers, racing up and down the yard, and the early mornings of my dad waking us up with his lawn mower cutting the grass. The backyard that I grew up with in Sacramento had a garden and if you stood on top of the cement wall that my dad built, you can see out to the small creek and to my elementary school beyond the fence.
Just like how my life has changed from when I was a young kid playing in the dirt until now, my childhood backyard has also evolved to be completely different. Now, when I visit my dad and my childhood home, a concrete yard is all that greets me. Even though it is still the same house, I know now that there will no longer be moments where I just stand on the cement garden wall to overlook the creek or that there will no longer be any birds that swoop into the yard to bask in the morning dew drops. All I can do now is reminisce about the good ol’ times of playing in the backyard. I hold in my heart the memories of what that backyard meant to me and how it has shaped me to become the human that I am now.
MEMORIES is designed to capture these feelings of nostalgia on film.
(Reenacted by Pheng)