Homecoming (ON-GOING)

Initially supported by Arts Council England, funded using public money through the National Lottery Projects Grants 2019/20.

In Kind support by: Welcome to English, SEAS Brighton, EuroMernet, UrbanFlo, East St Arts, ArtLink Hull, RED gallery.

The artist/project was also initially supported by two residencies - Artist Lockin @ Art House Jersey Oct 2019 and at SEAS (Soically Engaged Art Salon) Brighton Feb 2020.

Homecoming; A Placeless Place asks the public a simple question: What does home mean to you?

Homecoming; A Placeless Place is one iteration of HOMECOMING and is an on-going interactive installation made for on going public participation where anyone can contribute to the blackened out walls of any public space, by either writing or drawing with UV pens in any language they choose onto the walls directly. No UV torches are offered to the public throughout the social experiment so that the project can be as inclusive as possible.

The project HOMECOMING is wider then this experiment, with further details explained in other sections below.

So far Homecoming'; A Placeless Place has been experienced in the following spaces:

Crawley - Oct 2023 - Feb 2024 - In a shipping container placed in the middle of Crawley’s Town Centre and as part of Crawley’s Creative Playground, Homecoming; A Placeless Place (Crawley Edition) was presented (Feb 24) to Crawley’s general public. In darkness and with no access to UV lights, they were asked to contribute onto the walls of the space with invisible ink. Audio contributions from the general public were made possible via the HOMECOMING telephone line. A curated sound piece which interwove these personal responses, with private conversations around/with the artist as well as audio excerpt from wider global contexts (social media, news, radio). Audio included conversations around the current and on-going genocide happening in Gaza, Palestine. HOMECOMING Workshops with the general public and selected groups in Crawley took place from Oct - Feb 2023/24 and some outcomes were shown in this iteration (Homecoming; A Placeless Place (Crawley Edition). (Short film of this iteration coming soon)

Folkstone - July 2023 - As part of New Queers on the Bloc and Creative Folkstone, Homecoming A Placeless Place (Folkstone Edition) was presented to the general public. Here is a brief video of what the walls looked like post public engagement. In this iteration DNA space was used and members of the general public were asked to contribute straight onto the blackened walls and furnishings of this room. The digital visual iteration of this social experiment; Homecoming; A Placeless Place (Scarborough Edition) was also shown in the space.

London - March - May 2022 - As part of SPACE Artist Awards Exhibition, Homecoming; A Placeless Place (Scarborough Edition) was shown alongside blackened tables and UV pens for further contributions.

London - Oct 2021 - As part of NOW Gallery, Homecoming; A Placeless Place (Scarborough Edition) was shown alongside black card and UV pens for further contributions, as part of the event night Citizens of Everywhere.

Scarborough - Summer 2020 - In association with Scarborough Museums Trust, a digital iteration of this idea was created and presented into a film, with contributions made from local communities: Homecoming; A Placeless Place (Scarborough Edition)

Hull city center - Feb/March 2020 (just before the first UK lockdown)

*COVID- 19 Update & direct reflection from Estabrak / إستبرق: HOMECOMING was a project created between Sept 2019 - Feb 2020, right before the COVID-19 spread hit the UK, during it's global contamination.

Looking at the project now (April 2020+) it seems so strange to have gathered and collected a wide response of peoples ideas of what Home is to them, to us, and our feelings towards it. Currently forced indoors, I deeply wonder how our current unprecedented situation would effect the outcomes of the project if done at a later date. Will ideas of home change forever? Will those in more developed and privileged countries start to understand the notion of displacement? Could this have a positive effect on anti-migrant & refugee rhetoric?

In mind of the idea that 'No wo/man is an Island', below is the original information on HOMECOMING.

'HOMECOMING' is a self directed multi layered participatory project using community engagement, film, sound and paint for cross-cultural exchanges around identity, home, belonging and displacement. Developed in multiple locations including London, Marlow, Hull and Brighton, HOMECOMING intends to help push the boundaries of participatory practice by presenting artwork/s influenced by the exchange between low-engaged, under-represented, vulnerable and/or racialised groups and the wider general public.

The main aims of the project was to develop alternative ways of engagement through intense R&D (research & development) stages in order to create a more sustainable, accessible and immersive methodology for Estabrak's / إستبرق unique LPP ( Live Projection Painting) practice, developing the process further with direct audience participation.

*LPP is a process Estabrak / إستبرق co-created in 2011 that literally paints a film to life, live.

The R&D Stages were heavily influenced by public facing workshops and processes which were intended as both emotive and artistic response to the rise in recent anti-migrant/other rhetoric through creating a participatory process exploring displacement and othering. Questioning ‘What does home mean & what would it feel like to never be able to access ours again?’

“As someone of varying (sometimes seemingly conflicting) intersections, I wanted to examine how othered realities can relate to one and other and also relate to the idea of identity & home.” Estabrak / إستبرق 2019

The project evolved into four parts.

• Homecoming; Installation using running water and projection (derived from Estabraks LPP and underwater practices)

• Homecoming; A Placeless Place; Social Experiment (Participatory installation/social experiment for all ages and abilities)

• Homecoming 33; A 33hour Participatory LPP Performance (Public facing performance using LPP techniques and community lead engagement)

• Homecoming Workshops; Multi - Sensory 1/2 day Socially Engaged workshops for Adults inviting experimentation, documentation, dialogue and feedback.