A Corner of Home Hayleigh Longman
A CORNER OF HOME
Hayleigh Longman
Published 22 May, 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 based in London, however, around the time the lock-down was announced I decided to come and spend time at my mum's house away from the city as things still felt busier than they should have been and I wanted to be closer to my family.
I’ve been working on a personal project with my mum over the past year and it felt fitting to try and spend this time revisiting that. At first, I wasn’t sure how to use my time, I felt the pressure to make was actually putting me off so I have been covering my walls with cut-outs of old work and reflecting and researching in a way I wouldn’t normally have time to. I have made a new edit of the work and I’ve been allowing that to help me move forward with it which has been really therapeutic.
My mum’s house is pretty small, so can feel as though we’re on top of one another at times, but we do have a garden which we have been extremely grateful for and that is where my favourite detail of the place is. A huge tree situated in the middle of my mum’s garden which she cuts back each year to gain sunlight in the space. The whole estate is built around this particular tree and it’s been a big influence on my ongoing project with my mum.
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?
Spending so much time indoors together encourages me to observe how we bounce off one another. I am never here this much and it’s been interesting to see how relationships have adapted. I have been experimenting with how I can have a more sustainable set-up when making images, so I set up a makeshift studio in the garden, experimenting with the light at different times during the day, with the reflection of the tree on the backdrop. As the weeks go on it's growing rapidly, and it seems that every week there’s a different effect which is quite fascinating as I would not normally pay such close attention.
3. Tell us about how you’ve been using photography lately? What are you making or putting in front of the lens?
This project had been something I was wanting to spend some more time on. Before the lockdown I was focusing the piece on my relationship with my mum and also the area she lives in. It’s not where I grew up and she hasn’t been living here for long. Going for long walks in the woods and taking my camera was something I have done since the beginning of the project, but it feels even more fitting now that we’ve had the time to discover routes and walks we both are totally new to.
