A Sense of Place"In my beginning is my end. In succession houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place is an open field, or factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth….. Home is where one starts from."
By T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, East Coker
T.S Eliot's description is of a space which is constantly changing, evolving and eroding in an ever changing circle. This view of space is some thing which is familiar in today's society where new houses are being squeezed into every available space and due to work people are having to move more often than the average person did ten twenty years ago. By the end of this verse T.S. Eliot refers to this space as home. How can we possibly associate a space which has changed from all recognition as home, a very special place? The geographer Yi-Fu Tuans remarked in 1976 that "when space feels thoroughly familiar to us, it has become place. Place is something known to us, some where that belongs to us in a spiritual, if not possessive sense and to which we belong".
When people think of place, they think of something physical, something that occupies a certain location on a map. Yet location is only one component of it. A place can exist in the memory, as in our nostalgic recollections of past events or landmarks. The surrounding countryside, fields and farm buildings gently let us know that we are close to our destination.
These landmarks can evoke intense emotional feeling from feelings of dread if we have had a negative association with the place or a sense of relief and comfort when we approach home. The way we view a place and the intensity of feeling that we have associated with a place changes through out our lives. William Wordsworth’s (1770-1850) poem, "Tintern Abbey", describes the changing relationship with a place as we get older. In the poem he is talking about a specific place in the country but we can see how easily this could be applied to any urban environment.
In the first stage he talks about his relationship with a place as a child - 'glad animal movements' which pass away with childhood. As children every thing was viewed with wide eyed excitement, we thought nougthing of climbing rocks and trees. In more built up areas abandoned buildings were viewed with the same aw and wonder as the country side. We can all recall that as a child we sought out places which would have been seen as dangerous and unsuitable playgrounds by our parents but to the child it was exciting adventure.
William Wordsworth then proceeds to describes how as a twenty year old he looks on the same place "The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite: a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye."
This is a very romantic colourful view of the place and a million miles away from the excitement and danger felt as a child. He then goes on to describe the more complex response of an old man 'well pleased to recognize In nature and the language of the sense The nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.'
The country is not the only indicator of approaching home - buildings, factories and large imposing cooling chimneys which tower above the houses can create a sense of place. We react to these buildings and develop an affinity for, or repulsion to, them. Lucy R. Lippard said "Those of us living in any big city today are confronted by a vast mirror whenever we step outdoors. It reflects us and those who, like us, live on this common ground; we may look and live differently, but we can’t look into the mirror without seeing each other."
Lippard is saying that we are part of the place that we stay and as a result of staying there the place is a part of us and when we look upon it we can't help but see our own reflection. Places change, I can remember returning home after a period of absence to find that an old inn that we used to hang out with friends was gone. The space left echoed the feeling that I felt inside. The older generation were happy to see it gone, the younger generation had their own special place so couldn't understand why my generation were horrified. Every time I return home now it has changed, buildings gone, new houses in their place and yet I still call this place home.
E Relph, said "The changing character of place through time is of course related to modifications of buildings and landscapes as well as to changes in our attitudes and is likely to seem quite dramatic after a prolonged absence. On the other hand the persistence of the character of places is apparently related to a continuity both in our experience of change and in the very nature of change that serves to reinforce a sense of association and attachment to those places." E Relph is saying that if we are witness to change then it can help reinforce our sense of belonging but since most of us now leave our childhood home and may return after a period of absence to find that familiar landmarks have been removed does this then mean that the place then returns to being just another space?
Places can undergo economic, social, cultural, and political transformations that can lead them to lose their sense of place. One example is Kayaköy in Turkey. The town consists of 350 -400 houses with schools, churches and other public buildings. Shortly after the proclamation of the Turkish Republic the Greeks living in the region were exchanged with Turks resident in Western Thrace. This resulted in the houses being abandoned and the city assuming a ghost like appearance. Individuals can also lose their sense of place as a result of a fire or a natural disaster such as floods. The Boscastle floods in 2004 saw many people lose all their possessions, treasured photographs, wedding dresses and items which could never be replaced and found themselves homeless.
As the disaster affected so many individuals the community pulled together helping to clear up the mess and rebuild houses and lives. However many of the residents returning to there property reported that it did not feel like home. They expressed a sense of grief at loosing so many of their personal possessions. But they were confident that given time it would. These people had lost their homes but they had gained a greater sense of community and Boscastle had developed a greater sense of place, and ultimately became home.
But not every one has the community to help them what happens if they lose every thing. Artist Pepón Osorio's work is about his sense of place, his own life experiences, or that of his community. In his work “Home visits” Osorio is interested in possessions and the significance these have to individuals and how it must feel if you suddenly lost them to a dispossession, or lose them all to fire, theft, or whatever occasion or event might have occurred.
Osorio met with a number of families from different communities who had lost all their possessions and explored what it meant to be displaced. In "Home visits" he records the feelings of a family who had lost everything in a fire during the winter. Photographic images are placed on the exterior of a small model of the house which is then surrounded in resin. The resin was used to represent ice formed during the winter that the fire destroyed everything and also as a metaphor: to freeze and hold our possessions.
Osorio then took the house place to place telling the story of the family to different communities. This was important to Osorio as his sense of place is rooted in a very religious tradition in Latin America and Puerto Rico, in a popular religious tradition of the visiting saint. Osorio said that he had created a piece which exists in different levels. One is about loosing your possessions. The other is about restoring faith, which happens immediately after you loose everything. He says that it is also about possession contemporary art, and how a work of contemporary art can take a space in your home.
Home is therefore much more than a property that we live in. It is a very private spiritual place where objects take on a whole new meaning well beyond their monetary value. These objects could be a special gift, some thing we spent time and effort choosing for ourselves, or a treasured toy from our childhood which could never be replaced. They can include photos of family and friends or drawings done by our children as well as particular objects having symbolic importance. The idea of personalisation is also important. We spend a lot of money and time on a home to make it unique and the way we want it. The monetary value is less important than the thought and time, effort and associated memories that have gone into all the small details that together make a home unique.
Our home is a reflection of ourselves. They express our taste, our incomes, our past, our interests and our families to such an extent that if someone breaks into our home and rummages through our belongings we feel violated. If we lose all our possessions due to some disaster then we feel lost, Susan Langer (1953, p99) said " A 'place' articulated by the imprint of human life must seem organic, like a living form. The place which a house occupies on the face of the earth, that is to say, its location in actual space, remains the same place if the house burns up or is wrecked and removed. But the place created by the architect is illusion, begotten by the visible expression of feelings, something called 'atmosphere'. This kind of place disappears if the house is destroyed."
Susan Langer is saying that you can rebuild the house brick for brick and where possible replace the belongings like for like but it will still not feel like home, it has lost its sense of place. However as we have seen before disasters can add to the history of the place and given time a sense of place can be found. Shared memories, experiences, traditions and history, distinctive sights, smells and sounds are all important and combine to give a sense of place. A place reminds us of where we came from and shapes who we are. These special places are what make us homesick or nostalgic when we are away from them.
Do-Ho Suh, a Korean artist living in America, created an installation piece, "Home /L.A. Home" which came about as a result of him feeling homesick while living away from home in America. At the time he was staying in an apartment building which was right across the street from a fire station. As a result of a combination of the strangeness he felt in this place and the noise he found it difficult to sleep and remembered that the last time he had had a good nights sleep was at his home in Korea.
Consequently he became homesick for his room in the house in Korea. A sense of place is difficult to define and measure, primarily because it is so subjective. In his 1976 book "Place and Placelessness", geographer Edward Relph wrote that the basic meaning of place, its essence, does not come from a specific location, the community that occupies it, or superficial and mundane experiences, though all these are common and perhaps necessary aspects of places. The essence of place lies in its role as a profound centre of human existence.
There is for virtually everyone a deep association with and consciousness of the places where we were born and grew up, where we live now, or where we have had particularly moving experiences. Do-Ho Suh did not feel homesick for his country but for his home in Korea and wanted to recreate the essence of that and carry it with him wherever he stayed. This provided a way of dealing with the cultural displacement that he felt at that time. He did this by creating a replica of his home out of jade silk. The colour was that of the ceiling wallpaper in the Korean house. In the traditional houses they hang white papers on the wall.
And on the ceiling they have sky blue or jade coloured wallpaper. It symbolizes the sky or universe. Do-Ho Suh said in an interview with Art 21 "I think that by measuring and scrutinizing and investigating everything possible you really consume the space and it becomes part of you. Now you feel like it's in you and you feel comfortable. That's why I did my first site-specific installations, and I did the same thing with my Korean house project. But once you take that piece down from its site and transport it and display it in a different place, the idea of site-specific becomes highly questionable and refutable. That’s what I was really interested in because I think this notion of home is something you can repeat infinitely."
In Home/L.A. Home Do-Ho Suh has created a place which for him has the essence of home; a very special sacred place that he can crawl into and soak up the memories that this place evokes; a womb like place that he can ground himself in in times of stress. Arnold Berleant said “Sacred places offer a guide to what gives place its special quality and force. Of course the world is mostly made up of less than sacred places. But their leading features the full perceptual engagement of a perceiver with location that possesses identity and coherence in a seamless unity of experiences lie at the centre of place.
These occur with weaker intensity on less profound occasions. Yet however vivid it may be the peculiar force of this experience of place lies in the fact that we do not grasp space only by our senses we live in it we project our personality into it we are tied to it by emotions bonds space is not just perceived it is lived.” We all have a need to remind us of who we are and have a place that is sacred to us a place where we feel totally at home. When I was a child I would shut myself away in a cupboard and surround my self with all my favourite toys.
This time that I spent on my own in the cupboard were sacred. As an adult I find solitude with long walks in the woods. Do-Ho Suh’s experience of leaving home is not unique, in today’s society many people have to move many times in their lifetime in order to find work. This may be great for moving companies and estate agents, but it makes it more difficult to build a sense of community. Is it the lack of a sense of place that makes leaving so easy, or do people not bother getting attached to a place because they know they are likely to leave in the near future?
Why does place matter? Place shapes who we are and what we will become. A sense of place provides a sense of belonging and of commitment. It is the repository for our shared memories, experiences, and dreams. When people feel connected to a place and the community, emotionally, culturally, and spiritually they are more likely to care for it.
Of course, a sense of place can conjure negative feelings or images as well. Relph also wrote in "Place and Placelessness" about the "drudgery of place", that is, a sense of being stuck in a place, bound by established scenes, routines, and symbols. A common theme in rock and roll music is escaping from places that offer no hope for the future.
As Bruce Springsteen wrote in the song "Thunder Road": "It's a town full of losers and I'm pulling out of here to win." Also, in "Born to Run", he opens with "Born down in a dead man's town" showing a deep dissatisfaction with his home town. This is a very natural feeling of teenagers.
For the most part, a sense of place is a feeling that people find comforting. It could be where we were born, grew up, or hope to raise our children, a place worth caring about.In essence, people create places. They share experiences, invent and celebrate rituals and traditions, change the physical landscape, create farmland, build buildings and in the process, build communities. In one way or another, people put their stamp on a place and this they call home.
As artists it is natural for us to want to draw on these experiences. As it is so much a part of us we can't help but be influenced by our sense of place.
Margaret Livingstone Artist at Work 2007
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