Joyce Dallal

Finding Home, 1998

Dimensions:
Room size installation, dimensions variable
Media:
Furniture, framed historical documents, video, backgammon game board, collaged rug made from linoleum, photocopies, maps, and immigration forms.
Description:
This installation is based on the story of my father’s struggle to legally emigrate from Iraq to the United States and become an American citizen. The story is told in a wall of framed “family photographs” that are actually comprised of fragments of his story interspersed with artifacts and documents from his legal case.
    In the center of the wall is an arrangement of frames that contain moving video images, including text of the same story told from my perspective as a child, unaware of the legal struggle that was going on. In front of the wall is a small game table set up for a game of backgammon on a collaged rug. Viewers are invited to sit down and play. Backgammon is a game commonly played by men in Middle Eastern countries. The object of the game is to move your pieces clockwise around the board until they find “home.” As the game progresses, one’s opponent can block your progress towards “home” by “bumping” pieces back to their place of origin, a metaphor for the process of immigration.

[Home]