A CORNER OF HOME

Bindi Vora

Published 1 July, 2020

In the days that have passed and the days that are to come, we'll all be spending more time indoors. A Corner of Home collects photographic studies and new works made by artists in their immediate environments; small snapshots of the impulse to create.

Edited by Trine Stephensen and Joanna Cresswell

1. Where are you living at the moment and how has that environment shaped you creatively? Can you tell us about a favourite detail of this place and why?

I am currently in North West London living with my husband, we’ve been in our home for just over a year and have spent lots of time renovating our 1930s maisonette and through some research we’ve realised we are the third owners of this property, which is pretty phenomenal. The previous couple lived here from the 60s, decorated everything once in yellow and green gloss paint and buried so many of their belongings beneath the floorboards. Since April, we’ve spent a lot of time and energy nurturing the overgrown jungle of a garden and turned into our small oasis. This is one of my favourite spaces to spend time, a sanctuary and where I find solace in this time and have space to think and exhale.

2. How have you looked at the materials of home differently in the past weeks? Are there parts of it that have revealed themselves to you in new ways?

A lot of my practice has evolved from collecting materials and fragments often from various projects I have worked on. I frequently go back to these early tests or debris as I like to call them, to see how an idea has evolved, failed or never really started; piecing them together, weaving them into new narratives, almost like interconnected tissues. I have spent a lot of time recently looking back through the boxes of images, folders of negatives and piles of ephemera and begun to pick up works or ideas once more. From Polaroids, to found photographs, to negatives I found eight years ago. There’s something interesting about what time does to us in these moments.

3. Tell us about how you’ve been using photography lately? What are you making or putting in front of the lens?

I recently began making Mountain of Salt an ongoing series of found images, appropriated text and digital shape collages. It’s been a catharsis in some ways and each evening like a ritual I continue to work on them, there are 130 works and each day they expand. With this particular work I began by collecting language, language derived from politicians, journalists and individuals who were sharing commentary or their thoughts, at first related to the pandemic, but it soon expanded. As all of us adjusted to our new norm, current affairs became even more part of the daily routine, including the circus of coronavirus briefings. I found so much of the language to be provoking and inflammatory and really felt compelled to make a work in response. With everything that expanded from the pandemic which has sent shockwaves in our community, conversations around race, history and trauma have led the work to expand further, I was noticing people’s placards and what was being written on them. Spectators for example was posted the day after ‘Black Out Tuesday’ in which many people I follow had posted a black square on their social media in response to the untimely death of George Floyd. I spent the day wondering what would happen next, I posted this particular constellation of image and text as a provocation in itself. I recycled images from my archive and have continued to source more visual materials from a variety of places and paired them with the appropriated text. The use of archival images were important, I didn’t want to create ‘new’ images exist as it talks about our histories, moments that have happened, each one emphasised and echoes so many of the words / sentiments being shared. The digital shapes which you see layered on top of the surface are placed strategically not only to direct the gaze to the various intricacies within the photograph, but also speak to the semantics of what the shapes represent – balance, community, totality etc.