A house provides us shelter and safety, but when does a house become a home? Home does not merely provide shelter from the elements, privacy from the public sphere and a comfortable bed to sleep in, but more so, it is an object of possession. Your home is distinctly yours and therefore has personal, sentimental value. Home embodies a personal connection to a house, a sense of belonging. In these past few weeks, we have gotten to know our homes pretty well – the cracks and the imperfections. The shading of the sun on the walls at certain times of day. The sound of neighbours ascending their stairs. This sentiment has deepened. Yet, at times when you grasp the absurd reality of the current corona crisis, the home becomes its literal and objective self again, the ‘house’; a block built up from walls, confining and static. With the rise of the pandemic and the fall of public space, the function of the house has changed and so too has the meaning of ‘home’.
