My First House

 is an immersive environment composed of a burned down architectural structure and multiple video projections with a real-time interactive component. The structure of the house was disassembled on the bank of Saint Lawrence River in Saint Jean Port Joli, Quebec, in the spring of 2010 and transported to the gallery space. The structure is re-built within the interior of the gallery and becomes part of a landscape formed by multiple video projection reconstructing the memories of the actual site, which no longer exists. The audience is invited to walk throughout the installation space, as well as the actual house structure, and observe their own projected images mixed with projected shadows of the structure and other installed objects, such as a fallen tree, rocking chair, a cat, etc. The surrounding projections of the water surface of the Saint Lawrence river at sunrise, sunset and during the day appear to be swallowing the entire structure, gradually turning the space’s landscape from cold blue to burning red as if on fire. The project was developed during my residency at Est-Nord-Est where I came upon the burned down structure on the banks of the river and began to film the tides, and the sunsets on the river. While working on site, I gradually learned more about the story of the house from the local residents. Eventually, I decided to buy the remains of the house, transport them into the gallery space and reconstruct the memories along with the burned down structure and accompany them with 360-surround environment of the collected videos. Once the site was rebuilt, and the projections recreated the atmosphere of the river current and the projected sunsets reflecting in the black charcoal of the structure became reminiscent of fire many visitors shared their own recollections of a house fire. Hence, the immersive nature of this exhibition evoke similar notion of awakening and sharing living memories.