Close isnt Home Book

Close isn’t Home is an online platform that provides space for sharing narratives, information, and resources for intersectional identities. 

Close isn’t Home consists of an interactive game and a collaborative thread that prompts online discussion. It explores the materials, traditions, and personal items that influence cultural identities and memories.  We (Grace Kwon and Samantha Vassor) created a digital art platform to dissect cross-culturalism, generational heritage, and identity.

The game within Close isn’t Home represents a hybridized space of both artists’ grandparents’ homes. The creation of the grandparents’ home through digital means represents a sought connection with home spaces; spaces of foundational cultural identity and sense of homeland origin. The scene itself represents the cultural multiplicities of being generational American, referring to nostalgias of American culture as well. The game player can move throughout the environment to engage with the objects within the scene. Some of the objects in the scene are clickable and open descriptive text boxes allowing the player to gain more context of the cultural significance of said objects.

The artists emphasize upon the digital empathy and community by inviting others to a responsive forum. The artists’ friends and family, with similar narratives, were invited to respond to selected objects and anecdotes from the scene. These responses were compiled into a book as well as a digitally printed tapestry. The book and tapestry represent the first iteration of interactive responses to the project. Close isn’t Home has been put on a larger internet platform with the hopes of creating larger global conversations through connecting diasporas online.