Michelle Saffran

Shared Inhabitation:
Reconciling a Past that Didn't Remember Me

Shared Inhabitiation speaks to my sense of dislocation that happened when I visited my childhood home for the first time in decades. As I stood in my once home I realized that, despite my emotional attachment to the house, it had remained steadfast in its indifference to me; ignoring both my presence and absence. This house, and my experiences within, underpins everything that came later in my life. Yet as entwined as we were, the house had gone on to have an identity and life that had no relationship to me. For me, this place will always remain what it has always been, my home, but this only exists in my mind. The house held no indication I was ever there. How can it be that something so powerful in my own development retained no memory of me?