(a)way station

Conventional notions of home are centered around the stability and security of built structures where private life and daily ritual shape and are shaped by dedicated spaces. For migrants, however, domestic spaces and activities are inherently provisional. Caught between a former home and the possibility of returning or resettling elsewhere, life is disrupted and suspended in a period of transition.

With (a)way station, Paul Kariouk and Mabel O. Wilson use architecture as a mechanism to consider migration. Building materials, furniture, belongings, and personal stories— the components of home — are compressed into a series of towering structures that present architecture as it is shaped by the experience of migration. While architecture and migrancy most often converge at the sites and structures of origin or destination, (a)way station explores the aesthetic and spatial experience of migration en route.