You can take a person out of their homeland but you can’t take the homeland out of the person.

In my work ‘Homesick’ I look into the emotional integration processes of nine female migrants from diverse backgrounds, focussing on their relationship to both their country of origin and their new homeland.
My working methodology fell into two distinct stages:
1. Photographing the participant’s old home.
I made contact with the participant’s family who still lived back in the participant’s childhood home and visited them on my own. I then selected and photographed an interior wall within the home. I made a large scale 1:1 (life size) print of the wall photograph and hung it like wallpaper in my studio.
2. Photographing the participant.
I invited the participant to my studio and photographed them in front of the huge two dimensional photograph of their former home, the place they use to call home but now it is only in their memories.
The illusion that was created is almost sealed and complete but small clues reveal that all is not what it appears to be and the visual dissonance is slowly apparent.
Homesick’ explores transnational mobility by playing games with time perspectives that emphasise the complex psychological issues and conflicts surrounding migration.
Each migrant came to my studio without seeing the image I had chosen from her home. Although they were expecting to see their house, they were all surprised by the picture I chose. They met their childhood home in Berlin and after they observed the too-familiar wall, they stood in front of it, and I photographed them. Afterwards, sitting next to the hung wallpaper, they chatted with me about feelings, memories and a sense of entitlement