Expressions

2021,
Neon sign

The work is based on a famous phrase from the movie The Wizard of Oz(1939). After a tornado
transports her to a strange place, the main character Dorothy utters the words ‘’There is no place
like home’’ three times in order to return to her farm in Kansas. The neon sign in Caginli’s work
breaks up the sentence into amputated forms – ‘’There is no home’’ and ‘’No place home’’ – as a
reference to refugees who are forced to leave their homeland due to war and other crises. It
evokes both the longing to return and the changed circumstances that refugees might face if
allowed to return: ‘home’ would no longer be the same, it might be destroyed, loved ones vanished,
and they themselves might be permanently scarred by traumatizing experiences.

Commissioned by HAM/Helsinki Biennial 2021

                                                 Expressions, 2021 ©Maija Toivanen/HAM/Helsinki Biennial 2021