Topographies of Belonging, Homeskins I–V

first presented at Asia NOW 2025, curated by Arnaud Morand

Topographies of Belonging, Homeskins I–V envisions land and self as a single surface. Each homeskin is a memory of ground made portable: a horizon folded, lifted, and carried. The work asks how a country is kept not through territory but through bodies in motion, how bonds, rather than borders, hold a community.

Materially, the skins are formed from foundry sand, earth forced through industrial systems then cast aside. Burnt sand is bound into paper–fabric sheets and hand-formed into tall, soft columns. Dark and matte, they appear as blankets of earth, holding a condition parallel to human histories reshaped by political forces that render origins unstable.

The skins gather as a unit, moving through space like a family in transit. Once horizons observed from the fixed ground of home, they have unfurled into the paths walked: routes of migration and survival. They embody a collective movement, an insistence on cohesion against fragmentation.

Topographies of Belonging was first presented at Asia NOW 2025, curated by Arnaud Morand. Installed within the staircase of the Monnaie de Paris, the forms were suspended in the architectural void, transforming the passageway into a living field where re-rooting became an act of shared movement rather than a location.

Dimensions: Site-specific, variable (maximum length 30 meters) Number: Variable Materials: Geotextile fabric, reclaimed foundry sand, stainless steel