LANESBORO, MN. – If you live in Lanesboro, but your loved ones are hundreds of miles away, which place would you consider home? Is home necessarily tied to a physical place or is it an emotion, a state of being, an overall feeling of having arrived? Northfield filmmaker Cecilia Cornejo is exploring notions of home and belonging in collaboration with the Lanesboro area community through The Wandering House, an ice-fishing house she retrofitted as a mobile audio-recording studio, as an artist in residence at Lanesboro Arts through October 7, 2019.
As an immigrant woman of color who has lived in the midwest for the past 20 years, Cecilia is inviting community members to record their oral testimonies as they reflect on the significance of home, a concept that some of us may take for granted but is in flux for displaced communities around the globe. The Wandering House is designed to encourage curiosity and reflection, engaging participants in the production of collective knowledge and mutual understanding, while amplifying more nuanced narratives of rural life.
The Wandering House provides an opportunity for community members to speak candidly and privately about their understanding of home and the ties they have to Lanesboro. “The house is very much like a modern-day confessional,” explains Cecilia. “You go in alone. I am outside the house to assist anyone who may have questions and to make sure the technology works seamlessly, but otherwise, it’s just you. I’m not asking participants to identify themselves by name, and if people prefer not to record their voice they have the option to complete a written questionnaire and leave it in the house’s mailbox. The questions are posted and shared ahead of time, so it’s not about catching you off guard or debating you—no. This is about creating a welcoming space for introspection and for re-learning how to listen.” She adds, “Similar to the act of ice fishing, The Wandering House searches for the bounty that lies below the surface.”
Share your own thoughts and feelings on home and belonging:
Cecilia will be collecting stories in The Wandering House from 3:30-6:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 2, Thursday, October 3, and Fridy, October 4 in Parkway Place, the gravel lot in downtown Lanesboro. She’ll also be collecting stories inside The Wandering House at in Parkway Place as part of the “Fall into Lanesboro” activities on Saturday, October 5 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Cecilia’s work is known for placing community members at the center of the creative process, engaging them as active participants, co-creators of meaning, and architects of their representation. Over the last two weeks, shoppers at the Lanesboro Farmers Market, elders at Semcac Senior Dining and students in the classroom of art teacher Stena Lieb at Lanesboro Public Schools have each had the opportunity to offer their perspective, share their hopes and dreams and reflect on what home means to them through The Wandering House project. In conjunction with recording the oral testimonies of community members, Cecilia is capturing the rhythms of Bluff Country in a series of long film takes and is continuing to seek out individuals willing to be filmed, inside or outside their own homes. Cecilia will return to Lanesboro to hold a capstone event on Friday, February 7, 2020, where community members will have the opportunity to listen to and discuss the project’s findings and collectively decide how to best use and share the material.
The Wandering House launched in Northfield in July and August 2019 and has received support from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture and the Public Works Initiative/Mellon Grant at Carleton College. By exploring the meaning of home with the Lanesboro, Northfield and other Minnesota communities, Cecilia’s goal is to assemble an audio-visual quilt of rural and semi rural Minnesota that can foster dialogue across language, class and culture.
“I have this very amusing, very inviting little house, where people can come and speak their minds and express themselves and not be judged,” she says. “Lanesboro interests me for its resilience and remarkable capacity to reinvent itself, and in so doing, defying these worn out yet persistent portrayals of Midwestern small towns.”
Cecilia comes highly recommended by the Lanesboro Arts Residency panel, from a competitive pool of applicants living and working in Minnesota and New York City. Since the Lanesboro Residency Program’s inception in 2001, Lanesboro Arts has brought 49 artists to Lanesboro for Artist Residencies. Supported by the Jerome Foundation, the Artist Residency Program provides opportunities for emerging artists to create new work and integrate work into the local community. Lanesboro Arts Residencies include stipend, lodging and studio space. For more information, visit lanesboroarts.org or call (507) 467-2446.
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