Our childhood homes are both given to us and created in our minds. As children, others make the decision of where we live, but we each create vibrant internal worlds based on these shared surroundings. "Home" exists somewhere between the physical spaces and our personal, emotional understandings of them.
Sometimes, as adults, we have the chance to build our
homes anew. It is an opportunity to make a deliberate decision about where and
how we will live. With a family, we get to build and
define a place for our own children to explore and grow, now and in the future.
This is the act that
Joakim Eskildsen captures in his series, "Home Works". Eskildsen is,
at once, looking for a new home, documenting the process of a home's creation
and trying to re-see the world through his children's eyes. His work is filled
with beauty and wonder, curiosity and exploration, long journeys and small
steps, hard work and repose.
He writes:
"I started
photographing when I was 14 years old...During the first years, I photographed
around the house, the fields, and the forest. From the very beginning, it was
certain light or weather condition that inspired me and made me eager to go
out. "
"At some
point, my interest started turning back to the beginnings, and to the things
that had so much inspired me at first. I felt it was a relief to photograph in
the immediate surroundings, rediscovering what had made me so interested in
photography. My son was born, and little later, my daughter. Consequently,
my family started looking for a good place to live, which has taken us to six
different homes scattered over Finland, Denmark, and Germany."
Joakim Eskildsen describes this series as an "artistic homecoming". Fitting, given that the chance to build a new home represents, for all of us, both a return and a new beginning.
—Alexander Strecker
