What happens when one has access to a home? What is a home worth?
For my neighbors in Chicago, like many across America, one of their top concerns is affordable housing. Reflecting on the value of a home beyond a place of shelter, I spent sixteen weeks researching 218 GroveStreet in Bluffton, Ohio. This house was my mother’s childhood home and the place where my grandparents lived. My aim was to better understand where the value I place on the concept of home comes from and to use this lens to explore how culture, material knowledge and identity is passed down from generation to generation.
projects by anya mitchell
Reflection on Desires
Thinking about the way we divide ourselves into living a diversity of ways. Thinking about how all our ways of living are all actually one reality though they feel worlds apart. Thinking about our common humanity, our common desires. Desires for a safe place to call home, for our children to be educated, to have access to food, to name a few. Thinking of ways to cultivate a conversation with a common understanding that we are one, for this to be the base we jump from when we come together to consult on how we can solve and deal with the injustices that face our society.
Inspired by the neighborhoods and culture of Savannah, Georgia, these pictures are from places of intersections of the community; homes, schools and grocery stores. The images woven together reflect the one reality in which both places exist.
Self-Portrait
Nine stripes for nine members of my immediate family, each stripe made of seven lines representing my seven siblings, each line made of multiple other lines representing those who support each of us. Do you see yourself? This piece challenges concepts we hold of individuality, and speaks to the the relationship between of the individual, the community and society.
To document this project photos are taken of individuals or groups of people engaging with the blanket in an environment that means something to them. Photos were intentionally taken so that neither the blanket, nor the people, nor the environment is the central focus of the scene. The blanket is currently traveling around Australia.
Five Scarves, Five Women
In high school our art teacher would wear a scarf whenever she got a sore throat. "The scarf protects and heals," she would tell us. Throughout my life I have repeatedly found myself in a group of five women. I was born into a family of five sisters, when I moved to college I was put in a dorm of five women, when I moved to Israel my first group of close friends was made up of five women, and when working on an installation of a retrospective of Howardena Pindell's work, I was put on a team of five women. When reflecting on the implications of having these experiences, of always having a community of women to reflect with, listen to, learn from and laugh with, I see how these communities have protected me and healed my voice. To honor my appreciation for all the women in my life, I made five scarves for five women to support and encourage their powerful voices.
Lines that Connect
While in undergrad, my aunt sent me a box of my grandma's quilt squares. I re-purposed the fabric pieces to make collages that represent different people. Lines that are a part of the collage continue off the frame alluding to connection to other pieces.
I took what I inherited, built off the original structure and intent, to develop my own composition and meaning. I took what I was given and attempted to carry it forward with my own voice and interpretation.
