Faculty of Art

Experimental Animation

Sina Labbaf

Home (خونه)

Home (خونه) is a mixed media immersive animated experience and installation that explores the deeper meanings of home, beyond the physical space that we are born in.

“Where is is home, or rather, what is home? Home (خونه) does not seek to answer this question but instead, it invites it and encourages the viewer to think about it. It is a mixed media immersive animated experience and installation that explores the deeper meanings of home.The idea of home came to me after being away from “home” (Iran) for some time, and I started wondering what home really meant to me, I saw all these memories of home mixed with the new memories that I had made while being away from it. And I think that is when I realized that home could mean more than where you are born.I did not know that what has been recently happening in Iran was going to happen when we started making the project nor when I left Iran after a recent visit right before everything started happening, but I can’t deny the fact that it has changed the way that I feel about it.When we first started the work on the production, we tried to follow a style guide that was very close to that of a Ghibli animation studio. But through the process of making the project, it started to take its own style while still keeping the same warmth and dream like animation. That was because our intention was just that, to make the viewers feel as if they are watching a nice warm dream of theirs, a dream about home.And in order for you to really feel and understand that dream, you need to be open and vulnerable enough to let it all in. That is also one of the reasons for the installation that we have made. I believe that when you are laying down, you are in one of the most vulnerable states that you can be as a human being. And that connection with my memories of home, made that the perfect idea for our installation.I just hope that everybody who sees our work, can feel the warmth, the same warmth that comes from the hearts of all the people who worked on this project, as well as all the people who took part in my interviews that I did for finding the soul of it.”