Where the heart is

Its funny how after time, the work you think about from an exhibition isn’t always the work you were immediately drawn to. I think its a credit to the artist that some work takes time to digest and reconsider.

I have been spending quite a bit of time in the suburbs lately – most recently when I stayed with my friends out Heidelberg way in Melbourne last week. Travelling by train into the city, I’d watch the dawn light hit the houses perched among the manicured gardens and wondered what lay within. Arriving back late in the evening, I’d chat with my friends whilst their children slept, contemplating the intimacy of their daily family life.

I found myself thinking back to Ian Strange’s work in the Adelaide Biennial LANDED where his family home crashed Dorothy style in front of the Art Gallery of South Australia. It follows on from HOME and SUBURBAN – an impressive body of work exploring the constructs of suburbia and family that resonates both personally and as a broader comment on society.

SUBURBAN Harvard St by Ian Strange

Ian  Strange’s work quietly refutes the image of the suburban home as a place of refuge and safety from the horrors of the urban jungle. By shutting others out, we also lock ourselves in. Home also contains all the dreams and demons of those who live there. There is no place else where you get to know others so intimately, or see such personal drama unfold in front of you. At its most dysfunctional, home becomes a prison, where you are subject to the unimaginable cruelty of others who purport to love you so much. I think this photo from Time magazine from many years ago paints that picture well:

“I hate you for hitting my mom,” he said. “I hope you don’t come back to the house.” Minneapolis, 1988. Donna Ferrato.

As always its not all just doom and gloom.  The family home is also where we learn to heal, to forgive, to forget. Its redemption is in its lesson that love is not just blue skies and green days, and from this resilience we learn that it is our own radiance that allows us to light up the dark.

FINAL ACT Untitled house 1 – Ian Strange