Towards a Reconstruction of the Space of Home: Home Artifacts as Determinants of Cultural Differences, as seen in Selected Social Documentary Photographic Works

Karolina SZCZEŚNIAK

Abstract

The analysis of selected social documentary photographic works conducted in the article with reference to the artifacts representative of the idea of home was construed as a description of ‘private space’ not only in the semiological but also cultural-symbolic meanings. The proposed comparative analysis of home related artifacts involved looking for common elements in various cultures as well as for material signs differentiating them. The contextual approach applied in the course of the analysis enabled scrutinizing the world presented in the documentary photographs in question from the perspectives of culture evolution, its internal systemic differentiation, and intercultural influences. Deciphering the meaning of the particular signs (objects) of the material world is of polysemic, culturally conditioned nature. In the intercultural discourse employed in the paper the elements of various social culture models are analyzed in view of the relationships obtaining among them, and classified as predominant, preferred, or marginal, peripheral. In the case of artifacts functioning within the space of home, the criteria of assessing them were based not only on the ways in which they are used, but also on their symbolic connotations in the context of their ‘consistence’ with the spiritual dimension of national or ethnic cultures. On the one hand, documentary photographs which show home related artifacts enable a reconstruction of the nature of the relationships between human beings and the space of their homes. On the other hand, they grasp how the identities of an individual and a place as cultural components and formations build up.