'H o m e ' by Felicia Simion

In the traditional Romanian mindset, the house is considered the nucleus of family life, a primordial space which generates and preserves vital energies.
As a photographer travelling across Romania, I watched villages and towns being architecturally transformed during recent years, as a consequence of cultural appropriation and as part of the globalization process. I photographed the remains of a so-called ”traditional” world and also a more ”modern” approach to the concept of home, featuring imposing, palace-like houses and apartment complexes built on cities' outskirts.
By isolating them in natural landscapes, as a form of decontextualization, I questioned the meanings and attributes of these habitats, and how they are reflected in the fluidity of architectural styles. Is the house still a primordial site, or have its functions diminished to the merely utilitarian? Has the house been relocated from the center of the world to its periphery?