THE HOMING SERIES - Catarina Lay
Even though Catalina Lay Gomez (1974) has a degree in sociology, she is now dedicated to art, poetry, and photography. She considers herself a world citizen, having lived all over the globe. She moved to the USA with her family, this had already been the fifth country they called home. While starting to initiate this chapter of settling, making friends, and getting familiar, COVID - 19 hit the world.
"Suddenly we were all trapped in an empty house full of boxes in a place that had still no identity to be called "home". The deprivation of being with others was tormenting. I thought that if I would unpack, it would bring familiarity and ease missing others but I was not finding contentment in a house that had no meaning for me and the boxes were full of memories that on the opposite created a bigger sense of void," she states.
And thus began her motivation to make The Homing series. Registering their everyday life, she started to see her children fusing with the objects of the house. Being somehow inanimate. She extends that feeling in her imagery. Impersonality and lifelessness are shown in the objects as well as her family members. In this series, she tries to bring the lack of normalcy together with a feeling of emptiness that invaded and occupied a space of place of what she tried to call "home".