June 1 - June 15, 2021

The Poetics of Home

A solo exhibition by Stefana Dilova

 

The Poetics of Home is a visual adaptation of the various atmospheres of the main character’s apartment in the novel Territory of Light by Japanese author Yuko Tsushima. The story follows the lives of a single mother and her daughter over the course of a year. Many of their pivotal moments take place in the apartment they share on the top floor of a dilapidated office building in Tokyo.

 

Eight core atmospheric narratives from the novel were adapted into corresponding short film chapters. Each chapter reflects a different feeling of the apartment. Poetic descriptions of light, color, shadow, material and sound from the text were analyzed in detail and translated into audio-visual material, allowing the viewer to physically perceive spaces that had previously existed only in the written word.

 

Quotes from the original text in Japanese and its translation into English by Geraldine Harcourt accompany the film and provide the viewer with an additional layer of ambient context.

 

The film is shot from the interior perspective of the book’s main character, Fujino, offering the viewers an idea of what she might have seen through her own eyes. In this way, the project resonates the multiple lockdowns experienced around the world this past year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which prompted many people to turn inward and rethink the significance of the ‘home’.

 

Website of the project - The Poetics of Home

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Scope BLN Base:

The Poetics of Home, 2020 - 2021, 1-channel video installation
 

Scope BLN art space:

A collection of photographs of everyday scenes imbued with a particular ambience that indirectly influenced the artist during the development of the project

 

Stefana Dilova grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria and Sendai, Japan. Her projects explore the poetic and atmospheric qualities of everyday spaces, as well as the stories of their inhabitants, through formats such as film, photography and installation. Her work has been exhibited at several institutions, including the ZK/U and the Academy of Arts Berlin.

 

She holds a BS in Architecture from the Technical University Berlin and a MA in Architecture from the University of Arts Berlin. Lives and works in Berlin.