My House at Home

This drawing describes the house where I grew up, where my family still lives. It is a place I still think of as home, yet I only visit occasionally. Something is slightly different each time, creating a strange disjunction between the familiar and unfamiliar. Through representing my childhood home as a dollhouse that can be opened and closed, these were the thoughts I was hoping to explore.

This drawing describes the house in Singapore where I grew up, where my parents and sisters still live. It references the original Polly Pocket dolls from the 90’s, a nod to the period where I spent the most time in this house. For me, being in this house is sometimes disconcerting. It is a place that I still think of as home, yet I only visit once or twice a year. Something is slightly different each time I go back, creating a strange disjunction between the familiar and unfamiliar. It makes me wonder sometimes: if the house in my memories from living there is what I think of as home, then what this house in its current physical form – almost home but not exactly home? Maybe this is what anyone experiences when they revisit any place, just heightened when it was/ is home. Or, when you move away from home, home itself inevitably moves on without you, and your idea of it can never quite catch up, stuck in various bits of time. Through representing my childhood home as a dollhouse that can be opened and closed, these were some of the thoughts and feelings I was hoping to explore and convey.