Stay Home was shot on my iPhone with the sequence very roughly cut together to create the sense of a ‘home movie’. The film documents the experience of ‘staying home’ through a glamourised approach. Stay Home was created to celebrate the self in a setting that is familiar, but in a way that is unfamiliar. If the film was to say something in a very simple statement it would be ’staying home is what you make of it’.
One thing I have noticed during this period is the sense of community on online spaces and in some senses this could be seen as one big conversation. Stay Home intends to be a contribution to the global conversation that is happening right now. I wanted the activities I was performing to be based on relatively mundane tasks that most people pursue everyday, but with the focus being on how I deliver them. By shooting on my iPhone and carrying out (some) familiar tasks, it speaks more directly to a larger audience- and I think inclusivity is important in a time like this.
Normality has descended into surrealism and by performing normal tasks in a stylised way, with some of the tasks and poses being strange and bizarre, yet in an everyday setting, I am demonstrating the juxtaposition of the everyday and the bizarre. We are all inhabiting our home spaces, but not in a way we have ever done before. The serious way in which slightly ridiculous activities are carried out is also intended to highlight this clash. Another deliberate juxtaposition is the speed of the tasks being performed in comparison to the endless amount of time we have to complete them in.
Some of the shots are driven by a photographic aesthetic, for instance static shots where I just pose with an object whereas others focus more on a movement or task. I think the criteria organically formed as either a shot where I am enjoying myself or a shot where I feel good/confident- whichever it was I wanted to maintain an energy of purpose (regardless of whether the activity had purpose or not).
