Project Description

The Wandering House is a multidisciplinary project that features a fish house retrofitted as a mobile audio-recording studio. With support from partners throughout Northfield, Minnesota, I will invite community members to record their oral testimonies as they reflect on the significance of home and how current debates surrounding immigration affect this notion. The Wandering House will engage the community in the production of collective, mutual knowledge, while challenging the prevailing representations of rural people and immigrants alike.

As an immigrant woman of color who for the past twenty years has lived in the Midwest, I am interested in exploring notions of home, a multilayered concept in a constant state of flux as more people around the globe become displaced. I intend to pursue this investigation in collaboration with the Northfield community, my home for the last 8 years, in order to reclaim thoughtful interaction amongst immigrants and host communities, two groups that are continuously positioned as having little in common.

By offering an inviting, non-judgmental space for people to express their thoughts on prickly subjects–while featuring the community of Northfield both as producers and recipients of hard-earned knowledge–The Wandering House holds the potential to contribute in crucial ways to a greater understanding among those of us who call Northfield home.

The Wandering House has received support from the Public Works Initiative/Mellon Grant from Carleton College as well as the endorsement of the City of Northfield and the Human Rights Commission.

Press

Upcoming documentary, audio project asks ‘What is home?’ – Northfield News

Public Works Article from Carleton College on The Wandering House