Nabila Moolla

Artist Catalogue

Virtual Exhibition

The Illusion of Return is Refused

Such desire can never be fulfilled. It is not only generated by lack; it is always involved with a prior loss, even the memory of which is now past retrieval. The object to which we aspire is always, in a sense, already lost. For though we have never yet possessed the object to which we aspire (so how, we may ask, could we have lost it?), that aspiration, psychoanalysis tells us, is an attempt to re-create a sense of wholeness that was lost as soon as our experience of being was separated out into subject and object…Such objects have created the sense of being at home in the world, both physically and metaphysically. It is the realization, then, that one has been unhoused that creates anxiety (Schwenger, 2006:69).

The Tears of Things: Melancholy and Physical Objects (2006) is a philosophical and psychoanalytical theory written by Peter Schwenger, which discusses memory as a result of a loss or a lack due to a subject’s relation (or strive for relation) to an object. The longing and desire for material objects are, analysed by Schwenger, an attempt for the subject to find identity and familiarity. The title of the body of work, The Illusion of Return is Refused, derives from Schwenger’s theories in reference to his idea that the object we desire cannot be possessed and their presence can only be represented, not restored. The attempts to recreate my home is impossible, as these objects become plainly inaccessible and non-functional versions of what my homes once were.

This final body is an attempt at tracing the bodies of the seventeen homes that I have lived in. It is a project exploring what it means to long for home, losing that comfort and familiarity and using memory to create signifiers of the past in order to represent them in a new context. For many, the familiar presence of things is a comfort, but in this case, when aspects of my home are displayed in different and unfamiliar ways, the objects are perceived in a new light with new meaning. This is specifically seen in the materiality and use of cement.

Cement is associated with permanence. Whilst in this body of work, it is approached solely as a temporary substance. The cement is used in its original sand form as something that can be disturbed and blown away, or it is built upon lightweight, cheap and temporary materials such as brown card and polystyrene. Thus, the use of cement in this manner removes its functionality and, therefore, the conceptualisation of an accessible home.. In the floor piece, images were taken from Google Maps of the homes I had lived in. They were captured in this impersonal manner, from an outsider’s perspective, then screen-printed on transparent curtain. The curtain acts as a cover, sheltering the public from the private, but its function is lost as the prints are embedded in cement upon brown card. The viewer is found surrounded by an inaccessible house within a house.

The objects within the exhibition speak to the fact that there is no chance of recovery of materials of the past, just as Peter Schwenger testifies to. Further, the absence of the physicality of the home makes the viewer more aware of it as we take into consideration the traces of what is left.