"Home 404"
Sondi
This fluidity of home and identity is emphasized by the constant movement of the digital landscape. Objects and spaces appear and disappear, transform and metamorphose, pointing to the fragmented and subjective nature of memories. The result is a virtual dreamscape that explores diasporic identities and memories that resound in the physical space, the digital space, and, suggests Sondi, the non-space—or the imaginative space in which the non-space exists. Home 404 creates in this way a hybridity that is filled with new modes of being, in which the imagination becomes a tool for liberation.
Home404 is divided into three parts, each representing a spirit embodied by a mask. | Video stills Home404, courtesy of the artist
In part I, NI MIL, we move through a synthetic world where the sunlight is reflected on sand, plants, flowers, and vestiges of architecture. Here, a female voice states: “Defined by roots and mobility, the spirit now dwells in several places at once, unable to settle anywhere. | Video stills "Home404", courtesy of the artist
As a spirit, NI MIL travels through eternity, looking for those plagued by the loss of home, covering their eyes and enveloping them with an overwhelming feeling of incompleteness.” This evasive sense of subjectivity is embodied by the two other spirits. | Video stills "Home404", courtesy of the artist
Part II, ISI HI NYAN, describes the story of a stranger saved by a woman’s kindness who feeds them and provides shelter until they are well enough to continue their journey, telling stories of their land and people, until the memories become blurrier, and the line between fact and fiction gets lost. | Video stills by Sondi, "Home 404", courtesy of the artist
The stranger thus became a spirit, and eventually, accompanied the journey of a woman who left her own home and ended up wandering the earth alongside ISI HI NYAN. Importantly, this story reminds us of the tendency to idealize a lost home, here represented by “a perfect blue sky, an imaginary land, frozen still” that diasporic communities try to hold onto. | Video stills by Sondi, "Home 404", courtesy of the artist
Sondi hints that idealization, if justified by the loss, can be problematic and distance us from reality. | Video stills by Sondi, "Home 404", courtesy of the artist
Part III, KUNDE, tells the story of an “Ehi,” a guardian spirit born from a human and a river, who was treated differently in her village because she looked “different.” | Video stills by Sondi, "Home 404", courtesy of the artist
As the story evolves, the metaphor of water functions to represent the fluidity of her identity, which starts claiming spaces, undermining other people’s sense of belonging. She becomes a spirit in peace with herself and a “safe space” to others searching for a place to belong. Together, these three videos evoke the evolving, always incomplete, and ever-changing experience of being, a subjectivity constantly called into question because of its relationship with a lost home, a 404 error. The work ends with a grounding note: “But this is not a dream at all. It is more like a memory. A memory of the place I will never forget, because it holds me onto this earth. … And as I ground myself in a space with no floor, held together by my ancestors, I know, at all times, that I belong.” | Video stills by Sondi, "Home 404", courtesy of the artist
Together, these three videos evoke the evolving, always incomplete, and ever-changing experience of being, a subjectivity constantly called into question because of its relationship with a lost home, a 404 error. The work ends with a grounding note: “But this is not a dream at all. It is more like a memory. A memory of the place I will never forget, because it holds me onto this earth. … And as I ground myself in a space with no floor, held together by my ancestors, I know, at all times, that I belong.” | Video stills by Sondi, "Home 404", courtesy of the artist
Sondi
Sondi | © Angelina Nikolayeva