Homebound is an ethnographic experiment about the feeling of 'home'. We, Margot and Eva, are interested in how something as intimate, as intertwined with identity and, at times, implicit as the concept of home can can be communicated from one individual to another. Can I as a researcher bring unto the audience the way my research subject experiences their home? Can I establish this experience thro
ugh anthropological research? What can sensorial anthropology contribute to the communication of anthropological knowledge to a general public? We have conducted audio-visual ethnographic fieldwork in five households in Northern-Europe (Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland) and put our collected material into an exhibition. The data we have collected focusses on 1) capturing home as experienced through each of the five senses (touch, smell, sound, images and taste), 2) The relation between a person's identity and their experience of home, 3) Their construction of home through action and routine, 4) Their experience of home in the past, present and future. We have done this through the means of participant observation, film, audio and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with each of the participants. Exhibition
Our physical exhibition is divided in three parts: a spacial and sensorial interpretation of the five households, an academic and anthropological reflection on our research, and an opportunity for the visitor to experiment with our research methods by using them in regards to their own homes. In addition to having general opening hours we invite groups of (visual) anthropology students for a personalized tour, after which they are given the opportunity to reflect on our research and how they feel anthropology should contribute to society. Funding & Future
Homebound is a freelance research project. We have funded it through our own savings and a crowdfunding campaign. This means that we have the space to experiment outside the realms of an academic instution. It also means that throughout the project we get and encourage a lot of constructive feedback from our funders and other people who follow our social media. In the future we intend to expand our findings beyond a physical exhibition and see how sensorial we can get through the medium of a website.
