HOME - project by Andrzej Kramarz & Weronika Łodzińska /2004-2009/

My home is where my heart is?
There is a well-known saying that home is where the heart is. It means that the feeling of being at home, and of fulfilment, is closely related to what we love. On the other hand, it also suggests that real homes, with all their contents, are the images of our hearts; true reflections of our dreams, convictions and ideals.

Since the dawn of time, people have tried to get to know and understand the world around them, depicting it in the interiors of their homes. Hunters from Lascaux, whose lives depended on the hunts, captured reality by painting these chases on the cave walls. In the yurts and tents of nomads there was a place for the axis of the world (axis mundi) – a central beam connecting “mother earth” and “father sky” – as well as feathers and claws of totemic animals and representations of guardian spirits. A bonfire, like the sun, was the centre around which everyone gathered, and thanks to which life flourished.

Over the course of time, ornaments and details changed: eagles’ feathers and bears’ skulls were replaced with noblemen’s crests, icons of saints and portraits of ancestors. Later there came various gems and trinkets, expensive carpets, and paintings by recognised artists, informing guests of the owner’s status. Today, advertising posters, photo-wallpapers, and modern functional art prevail. Wood and coal-burning fireplaces, as well as candles and petroleum lamps replaced the bonfire, only to be superseded by electric lighting and gas heating. Trends, designers, and style gurus reign over the modern home. Homes that were once ascetic gave way to modernist, strikingly baroque or postmodernist designs.

However, despite modern equipment attesting to the unbelievable technological progress that we are witnessing – computers, surround sound systems, refrigerators, washers, air-conditioning systems – the essence of the home has remained unchanged. It is still a testimony to how we see ourselves and how we understand the world we live in. We feel intuitively that our home is more than just a set of rooms – most importantly it is our history and our memory, our loves and our work, our children and our parents, the important and insignificant events in our lives, shared meals, as well as sorrows and joys.

The photographs  offer  the concept of home. They show traditional homes in which sacred pictures, embroidered table-linens and pyramids of down pillows abound. What is more, they show the ascetic homes of circus artists, makeshift bedrooms of truck drivers, homesteads of collectors of knick-knacks, and cells of eccentric monks.