Home Sweet Home was an installation at the Common Place social centre, Leeds, in collaboration with Sarah Barrett. The project sprung out of the desire to create a piece of site-specific work in the public domain. The yard at the back of the centre was in much disrepair, but we felt that the space had a lot of potential to become a useful social space for the Common Place members.

The ethos of the centre is to, create a place in the city that rebuilds some of the things lost in our lives - a sense of community, affordable food and entertainment, a place to relax, talk, meet or find information on many of the issues affecting our lives, we want everyone to feel comfortable here. (www.thecommonplace.org.uk)
Working closely with members of the centre led us to understand that they saw it as a home in the city for everyone.

Home Sweet Home was a response to our research and the centres ethos. By focusing on the aesthetics of the home, and working with familiar domestic objects and patterns, we aimed to create a space that evoked associations of comfort and safety, an extension of the social centre. Bathroom furniture was re-designed to make seating and plant beds, wallpaper patterns were stencilled onto the brickwork and the garden was re-landscaped, built up higher, and re-planted, in an attempt to blur the boundaries between interior and exterior.

 

You can see documentation of the build and opening by clicking here.


 

Please click on images below for larger view