In Hiraki Sawa’s single-channel video, /home, a variety of airplanes take off, fly, and land in rooms and corridors, past peeling wallpaper, worn carpeting, and other signs of a long tenancy. The setting for this video is the artist’s vacant childhood home in Japan, immediately after his parents sold it and relocated. The experience of walking through the empty house reminded him of his mental attachment to each room and the finality of never being able to return to the home as it once was. The planes serve as powerful symbols for a family that was once united under one roof and is now united through shared history, memory, and the travel that is necessary to be reunited.

Sawa’s use of the backslash before the word “home” underscores his physical separation from his family home, their past, and all that has followed. Further building on personal history, /home revisits the subjects of domestic space and airplanes featured in his first video, dwelling (2002), set in his London apartment.

Image: Hiraki Sawa, still from /home, 2017–2021, 09’30”. Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan Gallery