homecoming; A PLACELESS PLACE

HOMECOMING; A PLACELESS PLACE / 13:44mins / Estabrak / Short Film / UK Lockdown / 2020
(Scarborough Edition)

This film contains strong language and flashing images.

HOMECOMING: A PLACELESS PLACE, is a film made by Estabrak as part of her ongoing self directed project HOMECOMING.

The film HOMECOMING: A PLACELESS PLACE was supported by Scarborough Museums Trust and heavily influenced by archival materials from their old Natural History Museum. It was made in response to a selection of replies from the general public in Scarborough to a public call out during UK lockdown 2020 (in August 2020); asking a simple question ‘What does home mean to you?’ at a critically significant global time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Replies ranged from voice notes and voicemails, to text messages, hand written notes, drawings and photographs to a publicly shared mobile number. Many responses which were not text based were used in this film.

Estabrak's intentions were to engage local voices with her own, interweaving individual and collective experiences through selected conversations around her. The artist also related these shared realities with ignored, often problematic, local histories. She did this by referencing the highly unsettling archival recordings and photographs from racist, hunter, traveler and white supremacist colonel James J Harrison's (1857-1923) own collection, found in the Scarborough Borough Collection.

HOMECOMING started in 2019 and is an ongoing, multi layered participatory project, using community engagement, film, sound, performance, installation and paint for cross-cultural exchanges around identity, home, belonging and displacement. The project intends to help push the boundaries of inclusive participatory practice by presenting artwork influenced by the exchange between low-engaged, under-represented, vulnerable, and ethnically diverse groups, the artist and the wider public.

In 2019 and supported by Arts Council England, HOMECOMING was originally developed in multiple locations across England including London, Marlow, Hull, and Brighton and is intended for ongoing participation and touring across the UK.

To find out more please visit: estabrak.org/work#/homecoming.