Document:Q11817

Home Maker explores what makes a house a home and how this changes if you cannot leave.
Home Maker is the result of a Year of the Artist residency, which took place in the homes of four housebound older people in South Derbyshire, UK.
Finlay spent time with each of the four people, getting to know them and making panoramic portraits of them which have now become part of an interactive, navigable online environment.
By exploring the environment the viewer can visit Florrie, Roy, Betty and Lilian in their own living rooms and experience their histories, preoccupations and passions in the form of hidden mini video documentaries embedded in the online space.

"Home-Maker came about as a direct result of working on the arts project Tea-Toast-Technology, which I was lead artist for. I worked with 50 people aged from 65-104 over two years, and was interested in continuing this experience gained through this participatory work into my own practice as an individual artist.
I had used Quick Time vr in commercial commissions and was interested in how it could be used as a medium for portraiture in a domestic environment.
I met Florrie, Roy, Lilian and Betty through Peoplexpress and social services in Derbyshire and were the final four chosen from the ten people I interviewed for the project.
I visited each person around 8 times, chatting, drinking a lot of tea, taking photos and eventually taking video. As I got to know them they relaxed in front of the camera and opened up more about themselves.
The mini documentaries show the stories that I was told over the time I spent with the subjects.
I was keen that the videos reflected fairly the people I had met and their preoccupations. Florrie is good fun and well adjusted to living on her own, Lilan misses her husband dreadfully and feels cheated that he died before she did, Betty is very proud of her family and house and Roy is the self confessed 'anti-pensioner' who contradicts traditionally held stereotypes of house-bound older people in Britain, as tragic, introspective figures.
I hope that the viewer gets a sense of being invited into and exploring a space they would never visit, getting a sense of the people they are presented with by their room and possessions, and hearing the intimate stories of four very individual people." Jeanie Finlay