The Evolution of the Home and Different Approaches of Study

The idea of home is something that we all grapple with, it means something different to each of us, and most of us have had multiple homes in our life. I am particularly interested in the idea of the home you leave behind. Jiaxi’s documentary hints at this, when her uncle speaks of young folk leaving China, and the mere fact that her parents are moving into a new home that no longer contains the memories of childhood.

There is tension for me when I think of my childhood home. I often wish I never had to go back to that place but my parents still live there. For some, there is tension because they long to go back to their childhood home but they can’t because it either the structure doesn’t exist at all, or the inside has changed so much that it is barely recognizable. Later there is tension because the people who were part of your concept of home are no longer there.

There are a few documentary projects that come to mind. I have been researching interactive web documentaries and trying to figure out how the interactive qualities of the web can be best used in my own art practice. The National Film Board of Canada has a couple projects that relate to the idea of home. The first one Welcome to Pine Point, is about a small Canadian town that existed for only two decades before it was leveled and taken off the map. The documentary lingers way too long on characters who aren’t very interesting, or perhaps it fails to discover what is interesting about them, but the beginning and the end are worth navigating through, it gives an account of what it is like to no longer be able to go home, and hints at larger issues with industrialization.

The NFB web doc I recently watched Highrise: Out my Window, investigates, in a somewhat voyeuristic way, vertical living throughout the world. This is perhaps the opposite of what is going on in Jiaxi’s film. This project provides a look at the increasing amount of urban homes in the world. What I liked about this documentary is that it tells a bunch of non-linear stories based on what we are seeing and like Jiaxi’s piece focuses on the everyday objects within the house. The object in Out My Window is the catalyst for the brief vignettes that play when you click them. The stories all seem to connect to a larger meta-narrative about globalization, migration, poverty and the power of art and community. 

Update: However, I can't get past the voyeuristic nature of the project. It seems very ethnographic but within a broad scope. I wanted it to be more personal/auto-ethnographic, probably because of my view that by getting more personal/specific you are actually making something that is more universally relatable.

I think Jiaxi’s piece has the potential to engage people because of the personal auto-ethnographic approach, and the ability to capture the subjects in a more natural state of being. She, the filmmaker, feels more comfortable with their subjects, which allows her the opportunity to linger on more candid moments, because privacy isn’t as much of an issue. I think that strategy is really constructive when searching for meaning in the everyday, and that is usually how I work as well. I enjoy work that exposes something about the filmmaker. Understanding their position in the work helps me better understand the work itself. Pine Point, for example, included some narration by the filmmaker, which was really affective in engaging me emotionally to the story because the other characters weren't as engaging. That is the problem with a lot of interviews, including the ones in the Pine Point project, they feel too narrowly focused and the subjects are often distant emotionally if they don't know the interviewer. This can result in a lack of thoughtfulness, that is hard to relate to. In the end, I gleaned something from all the work but I am still not sure how the interactive qualities of the web docs were helpful in telling the stories. I have been trying to figure out how to use the web to tell stories and how you can use its unique features in ways that are useful for the audience. 

NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA