Nieuwe Instituut
Nieuwe Instituut

Sonneveld House

Temporary House of Home

Home

House of the Unhoused

Photo: Johannes Schwartz

What is a home if the place you end up living in is always an intermediate stop - an improvised response to the need for shelter and privacy? What is a home if hardly anyone seems to tolerate your temporary presence there, not even your partners in misfortune?

Combining drawings, old sheets, and protest texts, the tapestry the We Sell Reality collective made for Temporary House of Home, alludes to the makeshift dividing walls in temporary shelters for the homeless.

No Space to Breathe

Dozens of beds scattered around the room. Here and there sheets have been hung for privacy. They don't block sound but, at least for a while, the other person is out of sight. We annoy each other but need each other to survive, and although we are strongly connected, we keep losing each other. In the end, we have to make do with little - our own bodies and a few meagre possessions, some clothes, a phone, a charger, a toothbrush, a bag. Then there is the pandemic, restricting space even further and delivering us to control mechanisms that wipe out the last vestige of self-determination. It is becoming increasingly difficult to escape regulation. It is dispiriting, but fortunately we have each other. For now. For a while.

Design: We Sell Reality

Nieuwsbrief

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