About Close isn’t Home
Alternate Titles:
Byen Pre Pa Lakay (being close to home is not the same as being home)
그림의 떡 (a picture of rice cake)- used to describe something you desire but cannot have
Byen Pre Pa Lakay (being close to home is not the same as being home)
그림의 떡 (a picture of rice cake)- used to describe something you desire but cannot have
Close isn’t Home is a website that provides space for sharing narratives, information, and resources for intersectional, black, indigenous, and people of color identities. Our website consists of an interactive game and a commenting section that prompts online discussion.
We (Grace Kwon and Samantha Vassor) are emphasizing digital empathy and community by inviting others to a responsive forum. Peers and mentors, with similar narratives, were invited to respond to selected objects and anecdotes from the scene. Close isn’t Home is on an internet platform with the hopes of creating larger global conversations through connecting diasporas online.
The game is a first-person experience in which you can contextualize cultural objects and what they represent in our personal experiences and cultures. The game within Close isn’t Home represents a hybridized space of both our grandparents’ homes. The creation of the grandparents’ home through digital means represents a sought connection with home spaces: spaces of foundational cultural identity and sense of homeland origin. The scene itself represents the cultural multiplicities of being generational American, referring to nostalgias of American culture as well. The game player can move throughout the environment to engage with the objects within the scene. Some of the objects in the scene are clickable and open descriptive text boxes allowing the player to gain more context of the cultural significance of said objects.
Through this project, we are recording culturally specific objects as points of empathy, normalizing their definitions and connotations beyond the label of “cultural object”. Close isn’t Home matters because it is a collaborative virtual space that is also a space of accessibility, familiarity, and reflection.
We are emphasizing the digital empathy and community by inviting others to a responsive forum. Peers and mentors, with similar narratives, were invited to respond to selected objects and anecdotes from the scene. These responses were compiled into a book as well as a digitally printed tapestry. The book and tapestry represent the first iteration of interactive responses to the project. Close isn’t Home is on an internet platform with the hopes of creating larger global conversations through connecting diasporas online.
We (Grace Kwon and Samantha Vassor) are emphasizing digital empathy and community by inviting others to a responsive forum. Peers and mentors, with similar narratives, were invited to respond to selected objects and anecdotes from the scene. Close isn’t Home is on an internet platform with the hopes of creating larger global conversations through connecting diasporas online.
The game is a first-person experience in which you can contextualize cultural objects and what they represent in our personal experiences and cultures. The game within Close isn’t Home represents a hybridized space of both our grandparents’ homes. The creation of the grandparents’ home through digital means represents a sought connection with home spaces: spaces of foundational cultural identity and sense of homeland origin. The scene itself represents the cultural multiplicities of being generational American, referring to nostalgias of American culture as well. The game player can move throughout the environment to engage with the objects within the scene. Some of the objects in the scene are clickable and open descriptive text boxes allowing the player to gain more context of the cultural significance of said objects.
Through this project, we are recording culturally specific objects as points of empathy, normalizing their definitions and connotations beyond the label of “cultural object”. Close isn’t Home matters because it is a collaborative virtual space that is also a space of accessibility, familiarity, and reflection.
We are emphasizing the digital empathy and community by inviting others to a responsive forum. Peers and mentors, with similar narratives, were invited to respond to selected objects and anecdotes from the scene. These responses were compiled into a book as well as a digitally printed tapestry. The book and tapestry represent the first iteration of interactive responses to the project. Close isn’t Home is on an internet platform with the hopes of creating larger global conversations through connecting diasporas online.
Scene One (2019)
Each of these items can be found in the interactive scene. We carefully selected items that are accompanied by written narratives and anecdotes. We then asked our friends and families to respond to any of the items that resonated with them in any way.
Click on the item to read the responses!
Archive
The archive is the documentation of supplementary items to Close isn't Home. The items are a record of the process of how the scenes came together. Some of the items exist in a physical form as well such as the book and tapestry.
