My house

Some days I get sad and frustrated, but I have found comfort thinking about my house in Mexico and all its rooms. It is uncertain when I’ll be able to go back and see my mom, but every now and then I imagine what she is doing in the living room and wonder which chair she is sitting on in the kitchen. I also thought about different ways that I can visit her and the house during lockdown: through analog photography, digital photography, satellite image and memory.

This reminded me of the Agoraphobic Traveller that does google street view portraits. She says she found a new way to see the world, and I think the notion of experiencing a place through the digital was very interesting, so I downloaded Sims 4 and recreated my house from memory.

I simulated every room and exterior almost to scale and remembered conversations, people, events, smells and sounds that make me feel nostalgic, but also grateful for having experienced them. It’s been weirdly helpful to process the pandemic, the lockdown, the homesickness and grief. I thought it could be an interesting way to deep-map my house, maybe in the form of short videos or side-by-side visuals with sounds of my voice or of other sounds that remind me of certain moments in those places.