Mi casa es su casa!

When I first walk into a home that is not mine I feel like a foreigner. Their photos, paintings, smell, furniture has its own unique history that does not include me. In this home their may have been celebrations, turmoil, cooking, sex, cleaning, sleeping, crying, mopping and a lot of walking back and forth.
I just spent six months of my life living in Argentina with complete strangers that I found over the internet. Their home was also an art gallery and the family room was jam packed with famous Argentine art works. I slowly learned the rules of this home/gallery space. For example, the couches around the main gallery space would only be used for formal meetings. The kitchen table surrounded paintings that for me were reminiscent of Pollock and Motherwell, would only be used once. We huddled to eat dinner in the only flat area without artwork around it. For the entire six months even after I was comfortable in the home and with the family I would slowly circulate the house looking at the modernist sculptures and paintings as if I were at a famous public museum. Occasionally strangers would come in to see the work as I ate toast or read in the kitchen.
Not only was I a foreigner in Argentina but I was a foreigner in my new home. However, I had a lot in common with this family. Like my descendants, the descendants of host family in Argentina also emigrated to the Americas from Italy in the beginning of the 20th century. We shared favorite foods, movies and artists. We used all the same products and read about similar artists. However, there were obvious differences. Americans don't have such a history of economic turmoil, dictators, and insecurity that has affected most Argentine's personal lives. Somehow, perhaps through the photos on the walls or through conversations that didn't happen and I felt this history had even permeated this comfortable two story home in an upper middle class neighborhood. I would never fully assimilate myself into this foreign home even though I loved my new family because it wasn't my history, language, pictures or acquired paintings.

I'd like to portray these feelings that I experienced in this gallery space that our class has created. I hope to achieve an experience that follows visual rhythm of our everyday life. So take your shoes off and make yourself at home (You probably won't)! And remember, mi casa es su casa.
-Anita