Uncanny Home

Shanghai, 2021

Home is a comfortable, heartwarming, and safe space. Yet, from all kinds of literature and movies, our home also frequently turns into a scene of crimes or supernatural events. They shake our faith to consider home as an absolutely safe residence, which may originate from the loss of control over a familiar space. Is there an uncanny corner at home where you tend to sense a note of inexplicable suspicion? This strange feeling may stay and linger, or it may be just an instantaneous reaction.

‘Uncanny Home’ is a photography exhibition where no photography can be seen upon arrival. The concept is inspired by Sigmund Freud’s writing on uncanny feelings about mirrors, shadows, and souls. Freud wrote about the uncanny aspect of this intimate space. Instead of disguising each photograph, I designed a custom-made 3D printed shelf installation to hold each individual uncanny feeling. Each piece of photography is folded and placed vertically inside the gaps. The exhibition is a journey of discovering different notions of home.

86 pieces of ‘Uncanny Home’ were placed inside a series of modular 3D printed shelves made from recycled polystyrene. The modular shelf installation was stacked together to form a volume and individually hung from the ceiling to create rows of uncanny feelings from strangers. The exhibition also included a section of readings of authors and philosophers who wrote about uncanny feelings residing at home, including Le Spleen de Paris by Charles Baudelaire, The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffmann, etc.

* Commissioned by the design research magazine DEMO, I designed a travel exhibition for their project ‘Uncanny Home’ in partnership with the fashion label 3ge3.