Since I came to Chicago three years ago, life for immigrants and refugees has become increasingly difficult. Especially in 2025, when mass deportations happened in the U.S., I found myself reading about them every day on social media. I began to wonder: how does it feel to try to build a home in a place where you do not belong? To answer that, I started my next project, An Ideal Home On The Ideal Land.

 

I make miniature houses based on the concept of the “ideal home.” Their appearances reference Chicago suburban luxury houses, representing wealth and stability; their interior designs suggest the owners’ taste and comfortable lifestyles. However, these ideal homes are made from scraps collected from the street: shipping boxes, waste paper, discarded accessories. They look battered and fragile, clashing with the fantasy of home. Not only that, traces of violence emerge from every corner of the houses—collapsing ceilings, broken glass, unstable structures. Found images are woven through the worn-out materials, showing scenes of war unfolding in another part of the world.

 

Hope and hopelessness converge within these “ideal homes.” They create a world of cause and effect, revealing the impossible journey of outsiders searching for belonging.