HERE LIES OUR BELOVED HOME

Here Lies Our Beloved Home, found tile, glass blocks, mortar, paint and lead, 98 x 50 x 20 cm, 2024.

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Found fragments of a demolished home are frozen in chrome to warn us of the new age homogenizer, and the operation is as follows: scaffolded skeletons shield mass burial grounds where something once was and no longer is. Chromium creeps into the global forecast, sleek, stripped, and sold as luxury condos. More empty cubicles, shuttered storefronts, forced evictions, and suddenly, there’s a crack in the cocoon. Home becomes a casualty, cities are purged for the profit of the homogenizer, and the death of our mother tongue is written in mortar.

Mahmoud Darwish, “The House as Casualty,” in A River Dies of Thirst,
trans. Catherine Cobham (Archipelago Books, 2009). Excerpt used for commentary.