no place like home
exhibition at Kit Form, Bristol
May 2025
the exhibition of no place like home at Kit Form in 2025 saw the presentation of a selection of all three elements that make up the full project, namely: a selection of photographic images from the series; postcards presenting digital collages of London sights overlaid with an image of the artist’s childhood home in clear varnish, and; physical collages between archival images from the artist own collection spliced with their exact modern day locations. The latter two elements hint at the themes explored in the larger, former, elements and intend to help the viewer access the layers present in the work.
the postcards
presenting a collage of the ‘picture postcard’ of London sourced from promotional tourist material from throughout the city, the ‘ghost’ image of the artist’s childhood home points to the fact that this home, despite being located within the ‘sights’ - and in common with the areas being explored by the main body of the work - is completely absent from depictions of London commonly promoted.
the archival collages
these images communicate the fact that, whether we like to admit it or not, our present encounter with place is inseperable from our past experiences either with the same location or with location that the present space somehow emotionally connects with in our memory
---
photographic prints on archival photographic paper
84.1cm x 119cm [x6]
screenprint image in clear varnish on digitally printed postcard of digital collage displayed in postcard rack
10.5cm x 15cm [x100]
collage of archival, analogue printed photographic images displayed in donated domestic frames
dimensions vary [x6]
-----
The title of this series repurposes the English language aphorism “there’s no place like home” as a double-entendre. On one level, it expresses the fact that the London being explored by the artist in no way resembles the London in which they grew up. However, it also brings into question whether the home they remember ever really existed. As Edward Casey reminds us, “The world about which we are nostalgic is at once definite and unattainable...[it] is undeterminable as never having occurred in a particular moment.” If this is indeed the case then, like Sebald’s Austerlitz, the artist’s search for some kind of reconcilliation with the past may be ultimately futile.
May 2025
the exhibition of no place like home at Kit Form in 2025 saw the presentation of a selection of all three elements that make up the full project, namely: a selection of photographic images from the series; postcards presenting digital collages of London sights overlaid with an image of the artist’s childhood home in clear varnish, and; physical collages between archival images from the artist own collection spliced with their exact modern day locations. The latter two elements hint at the themes explored in the larger, former, elements and intend to help the viewer access the layers present in the work.
the postcards
presenting a collage of the ‘picture postcard’ of London sourced from promotional tourist material from throughout the city, the ‘ghost’ image of the artist’s childhood home points to the fact that this home, despite being located within the ‘sights’ - and in common with the areas being explored by the main body of the work - is completely absent from depictions of London commonly promoted.
the archival collages
these images communicate the fact that, whether we like to admit it or not, our present encounter with place is inseperable from our past experiences either with the same location or with location that the present space somehow emotionally connects with in our memory
---
photographic prints on archival photographic paper
84.1cm x 119cm [x6]
screenprint image in clear varnish on digitally printed postcard of digital collage displayed in postcard rack
10.5cm x 15cm [x100]
collage of archival, analogue printed photographic images displayed in donated domestic frames
dimensions vary [x6]
-----
The title of this series repurposes the English language aphorism “there’s no place like home” as a double-entendre. On one level, it expresses the fact that the London being explored by the artist in no way resembles the London in which they grew up. However, it also brings into question whether the home they remember ever really existed. As Edward Casey reminds us, “The world about which we are nostalgic is at once definite and unattainable...[it] is undeterminable as never having occurred in a particular moment.” If this is indeed the case then, like Sebald’s Austerlitz, the artist’s search for some kind of reconcilliation with the past may be ultimately futile.
