You’re the Places I Wanted To Go

2010-2011

How integral is a place to the identity of a person?

You're the Places I Wanted To Go is about finding home in other people's choices. A constant search in my own identity, along with growing up in a way that made me fragment my idea of identifying the places that made me most comfortable were the motivations for this project. The solution, as always, is research. Having photographed over thirty people so far and still growing, I find myself closer to what I have previously felt was unobtainable, the answer to a question that was fleeting in my mind.

Is home in my mother's house, with the Victorian furniture and sponge painted walls, an expansion of the decorating mentality of the house I grew up in, everything in a specific order and in a specific color catalog? Or, is it in my father's, in the house where the garage is second only to the lake that is in the backyard, where the bedrooms are only considered places to sleep and every other section seems to only lend itself to being outside of it's walls? Should I be looking to my apartment with my sister, where I seem to throw things down in my room to sleep without thinking of the consequences of piles?

Is home somewhere I've been previous, or is it somewhere I have yet to find?

At the same time, I questioned how a person's identity changed based on what they were wearing. Can home be anywhere in the world, as long as I'm wearing my polka dot dress? Would my answer change if I was wearing something that made me uncomfortable, or something that made me feel like a million dollars?

As always, when I can't answer questions for myself, I give them out to others. The people I photographed were asked two specific questions. Where do you feel the most at home? What are you wearing when you feel best? The images shown are their answers. What are yours?