Day 3: The Familiar as Unfamiliar

How do you feel when you enter your home? What do you smell? Where do your feet automatically take you? What is the first thing you feel compelled to do?

House Smell

It’s said that we never know what our own house smells like. What do you think your home smells like? Perhaps there is a subtle pet smell, laundry powder, herbs and spices used for cooking. Are the smells are more abstract, can you smell the frustration in the spices that emerged from the food not going according to plan?

Design a candle based on all the smells you think may contribute toward the smell of your home.

What color would it be?

What picture would be on the label?

Perhaps draw the candle.

The Front Door

The front door to our home is a fascinating thing. What purpose does it serve? It keeps the outside wold away, it provides safety, privacy perhaps. Its purpose is magnified and changed by the lockdown, it keeps us safe by keeping us in. How strange that our doors been closed not by us, but by the law. We can no longer decide how many times we enter and exit through our door, how do you feel about the door now?

Take a good look at your front door. Does it feel sturdy and secure?

Take a picture of your doorway.

Now open it.

Take a picture of your doorway and the outside world it now frames.

If you can, step outside. Look back at the open doorway and how it frames the inside of your home. Perhaps take a picture.

Stepping through the door

The next section of today's misguide will be taking place outside of your home itself, and exploring the surrounding area, your home in a broader sense.

Before you step outside, rearrange some things in your house. Perhaps the things that greet you immediately as you walk in, perhaps in the first room you'd usually head towards. The aim is to make the familiar things in your home feel slightly unfamiliar. If you have something such as a new air freshener, or a perfume or scent that you rarely use then perhaps spray this. Maybe you light a rarely used candle for a while (don't forget to blow it out before you leave though!)

Now, step outside.

How does it feel to be outside your house?

Take a walk, perhaps walk a different route to your usual tracks. For example, can you walk toward the tallest thing in your area?

How does it feel to see other people on your walk?

Do you know them?

Do they smile at you?

You might have to keep crossing the road to keep 2 metres away from people, constantly switching and swapping directions as you travel.

Why not turn this into a game? Pretend you're a spy and must move in the most creative paths possible. Maybe give everyone you pass a knowing nod, perhaps they are your fellow agents against your nemesis - Coronavirus.

Continue this for as long as you wish, then head back home.

How does it feel to re-enter your house? To push open the door into your home?

How does your house feel changed now you've rearranged things?

Is it disconcerting that your nostrils fill with a new scent, different from the usual?

Thanks for completing Day 3, we hope to see you on our twitter and hashtag @MisguideH and #misguideathome ! Don't forget to come back tomorrow for Day 4.