My Nonna’s House (Home)

Home is a space that highly impacts our day to day life. I live alone in what is formerly my nonna’s (grandmother) house. Built in the 70s, bought in the 80s, she filled her house with vintage consignment furniture, paintings and photos. The only objects she bought for relaxation were mystery books and the lone tv; bought only for her family’s sake. This collection of possessions creates a sensation of standing still; stuck, surrounded by someone long gone. There are also the aspects on the outside of the home that influence the experience inside. My nonna put precautions in place to protect herself from the many break-ins that were happening in the neighborhood when she first moved in. There is loneliness and paranoia that come with living behind these protective bars and rolling shutters.

This series is about the ever evolving relationship between myself and the house.Whether I choose to engage or ignore the contents of the house— and the feelings of abandonment and isolation it harbors— my simple presence invokes a change to the nature of what it once was. Light plays an instrumental role in how I capture the secluded and antiquated feel of my home. I utilize the natural and artificial light to document distinct settings within it. These documentary photos provide a stage for the self-portraits and reconstructed scenarios of day to day interaction within the confines of the space. I embraced color film to capture these scenes to bring the warmth of the past into the present and bring the viewer back to the beginning of this houses journey; to evoke a nostalgic feel and texture to the images.