Home Phrases

The project is informed by experiences of isolation through the past pandemic years. It explores the link between isolation and social connection, as well as the relationship between the human body and the spaces in which we live. Under the influence of this pandemic, I have been living alone for a long time. In this state, life experiences that were easily overlooked have been magnified. 

Through the long period of staying at home, I have developed a use of spatial formats to build interpretations of the spaces we inhabit. The project focuses on narratives played out between co-habitants within a home space, trying to make a sense of playing and exploring, to confront these sad circumstances. Inspired by phenomenology and semiology of lived experience in architectural places, I realised that there are far more profound meanings within the home space.

Dialogues between flatmates have been recorded, then made visual as illustrations, made physical as play blocks, and re-performed by the same flatmates. The illustrations, blocks and performances link and translate to each other.


Tips of play blocks:
There are magnets embeded in different sides of each block, the blocks can be connected by magnets for people can randomly mix and match, to build whatever they imagine the space as ‘home’.


The Illustrations of this project were shortlisted in the Alternative Publishing Category of the World of Illustration Awards(2022).








Selected Group Exhibitions


Terminal RCA, Ugly Duck, London, 2021







©️ Zhenyi Zheng    ︎Index