‘Homelandscape’, currently on view at Teasmith Teahouse/Gallery, is a multi-sensory installation comprised of photography, a philosophical essay, and sound and scent components by Japanese-Finnish duo Elina Moriya and Miika Osamitsu. The visual, textual, audible and olfactory elements work in conjunction to create a space in which the visitor can contemplate and question the concept of home and homelessness, as well as their personal experience of it. I spoke to Ms. Moriya, who contributed the mysteriously evocative photographs that represent a ten-year exploration into the subject of home.
Meave Hamill: The main theme for this work is home and its counterpart, homelessness. I’ve seen that theme come up in your earlier work as well. Can you talk about what home means to you and why this theme is a reoccurring interest of yours?
Elina Moriya: The interesting thing about the concept is that personally I don’t have a home. I’ve never felt at home anywhere. Everyone has a different concept of ‘home’ obviously, but I never had a home country. I think it is because I grew up in two countries [Japan and Finland]. But the ‘home’ is actually within you. Home is traces of things. For some people it’s a physical or material thing, but actually those are the traces and we carry home within ourselves.
A lot of people in Finland think that you need to have one home and one home country, and I never fit into that. Miika has the same background as me, and we’ve both felt like we are homeless, but in a positive way. I always say that I came to London because London is a place for lost souls, but I mean that in a positive sense. In London, a lot of people have multiple ‘homes’ because of the cultural diversity of London. This exhibition really fits London. In Finland it would be viewed differently and people would think about it differently, and in Japan as well. Japan and Finland are both very homogeneous countries. Most of the population is one race or one nationality which might not have to deal with questioning their concept of home at all, whereas London has more diversity.
MH: Are these works an attempt to resolve your feeling of homelessness, or are they a representation of the ‘traces’ of home?
EM: I don’t think we’re trying to resolve anything because I personally believe that there is not absolute truth in anything, so there is no one answer. I think what we’re trying to do is to raise questions, to bring up some thoughts and questions that we have. We don’t know if other people would have the same questions as we do. Especially in Japan and Finland, because we have this double or multicultural background we tend to think a little bit differently. In London, we blend into the diversity of people, because everyone is dealing with these questions. In London we’re just participating in the conversation that people deal with daily in some form, consciously or unconsciously. I think every one of us in London has some thought process about their home and their background. Like, ‘What is everyone going to do on Christmas? It’s the time to go home’, or ‘Do you even have Christmas?’ or ‘What’s your religion?’ or ‘What’s your belief?’
It’s definitely more traces. It’s about searching also, about philosophical conversations that we have. I’ve been shooting this for ten years, so I think it’s my own process of dealing with that whole concept of searching for my answers and just researching.
MH: Are your photographs meant to be representations of real places?
EM: No. They were shot both in Finland and Japan, over a period of ten years, so two countries, and multiple places and times. They’re not meant to be ‘here’ or ‘here’ and that’s why the image names are more about questioning than just giving a straight answer. For me, each place had significance, but I didn’t think that it was particularly important for me to tell to the viewer. I thought that that might distract from the whole concept, that people might get fixed on the location. That place might have some personal significance to me, but it might not have anything to do with the concept of home for anyone else, so I though that was not relevant. I haven’t even told Miika where all of the photos are from, and he doesn’t want to know. It becomes too personal.
Ghost of a Language. 2011. 81 x 61 cm. Giclée print. ©Elina Moriya 2011.
MH: The sound installation is ambiguous as well.
EM: Yes, there is a washing machine part that I think sounds like guns firing, but someone said it sounds like walking on snow. Someone else asked if something was burning. Miika hasn’t revealed [the sources of the sounds] to me.
MH: Is this the first time that you’ve collaborated with another artist on a body of work?
EM: I’ve collaborated with a journalist before, but not with another artist. I’ve done installations and I’ve had sound before, but because Miika did both sound and the essay, it’s the first of this kind of collaboration. And we have smell. It was supposed to be the traces of homeland that people smell as well. There’s incense, green tea, tar, and birch leaves that might trigger someone’s trace of home.
Impermanence of Existence. 2011. 61 x 93 cm. Giclée print. ©Elina Moriya 2011.
MH: You use the word ‘trace’ often, but you seem to avoid the word ‘memory’. Do you see them as being very different concepts? Is there a reason you don’t refer to them as memories?
EM: A ‘trace’ could be multiple memories or it could be no memory at all. 'Memory' is always fixed on one particular place and time in your life, but a trace could be multiple, or a multi-dimensional thing. ‘Trace’ is more open. It can be very flexible.
MH: What are some of your traces of home?
EM: Green tea. Green tea is very Japan. And that’s one of the reasons why I was so keen to have the exhibition here at Teasmith. When I go to Japan there are department stores that always have a food floor. When I go there, it’s intoxicating, the wall of green tea smell that hits you. And I always feel like ‘I’m in Japan now’. I have several moments during the day here in London when I sit down and have green tea and that’s my moment, my trace of Japan. For me it’s very significant. For Finland the trace is probably a forest. In Japan it’s a bamboo forest and in Finland it’s a birch forest. There’s something very Finnish in me that I need to go and walk in a forest occasionally.
Layers of the Unsubstantial Absolute Truth. 2011. 61 x 93 cm. Giclée print. ©Elina Moriya 2011.
MH: Where do you see this going in the future? Is there another theme you want to explore?
EM: I have several exhibitions that I’m working on. I was very lucky to have a state art grant from the Art Council of Finland for this year, so I’ve been working very intensively on my artwork. This theme [of home and homelessness] will always go with me. My other themes also have to do with Japan, and most of my other exhibitions have had some relation with Japan. I call it my research. I’m also doing documentary projects. I work on several projects simultaneously. For example, I’ve been working on a long-term project where I go into clubs in London and am looking at the British culture. I’m starting to find that I’m looking at what interests me about British culture and making comparisons to Japan and Finland. Not comparisons in a negative way, but that’s how I reflect things. Obviously Japan and Finland are always going to be there, but I’m also looking into new directions.
‘Homelandscape’ by Elina Moriya and Miika Osamitsu is on display until 6 November 2011 at Teasmith Gallery.
