Haven & Home Sweet Home
Haven is an ongoing public project devised for West Walls Studios and subsequently developed by Jan Kelsey and Paul Taylor, reflecting on ideas of home, security and belonging. It takes the form of a town of small paper houses, each one identical, each made completely unique through the process of drawing and decoration. Participants can also choose where to locate their “Haven” in a giant paper landscape, and personalise that setting, negotiating space with others.
Subsequently Haven has been created at the Liverpool Biennial; Somerset House, London; in schools all over Cumbria and the North East; and in “The Middle of Nowhere” in a remote lodge in the forests of Sweden, viewed via the internet.
In every location Haven unerringly reflects the concerns of the community and individuals that shape it.
Out of Haven came Home Sweet Home using another archetypal cardboard template of an A4 suitcase. As in Haven participants were invited to contemplate the concept of having to leave home suddenly and the emotions and precious things that would be carried in the magical bottomless suitcase. An installation of suitcases, sound and text was exhibited at Lancaster University.
