Contribution short abstract:

Within These Walls is an artistic research project that examines the role of the home in European individuals personal and cultural identities. Using visual methods and qualitative research, the project explores how living spaces reflect identity, belonging, and societal challenges. By documenting Sámi homes, often overlooked in broader European contexts, the project provides an intimate and authentic insight. The project also includes perspectives from Bulgarian and German communities, offering a comparative European context. By capturing unaltered photographs and conducting interviews, the project highlights both the individualities and differences as well as commonalities and similarities between these cultures. In addition to the research the findings will culminate in a multilingual book and an immersive exhibition to make it accessible to a wider public.

Contribution long abstract:

The artistic research project Within These Walls aims to examine the role of several European peoples, including Sámi people and their homes. Using visual methods and qualitative psychological research, the project seeks to understand how homes reflect personal and cultural identities. Within These Walls explores how living spaces shape identity and belonging and how in turn cultural identity and society is reflected in these private spaces.

The Sámi people are central to this project because understanding their homes provides deeper insight into their identities and culture, which remain relatively unknown across much of Europe, and by focusing on their living spaces the project gives an intimate and real insight into their lives.

In addition the project includes perspectives from Bulgarian and German communities. By including several European peoples, we offer a broader platform for amplifying underrepresented perspectives while providing a European context. Comparing the domestic spaces of Sámi, German, and Bulgarian people will help make the project more accessible to those who have never encountered these cultures as well as offer scientific insight into both the differences and similarities across these homes.

We will visit people in their homes, capturing photographs of them in their unaltered environments. The goal is to document these spaces as authentically as possible, reflecting the genuine heart of each home and individual. We will additionally interview participants. In addition to our research, the project will result in a multilingual book and an immersive exhibition to make the findings more accessible to the public.