Grounded.exe is a reflection on how Windows XP shaped my sense of home. As a child, the computer was my constant its sounds, screens, and even the little digital dog brought me comfort and calm. With time, that familiar world began to feel strange and unsettling, echoing how safety can shift as we grow. Yet even in its glitches and distortions, I still find grounding in this old digital space. Shown on an actual Windows XP system, the work recreates the environment that raised me, inviting viewers to consider how technology can hold both nostalgia and fear, and still carry us toward healing.

I came to Jozi searching for something a home, maybe. But home was never home. Even when I left home, it was to find one. For my object, I chose a polyprop bag a (Machangane) bag which is also incorporated on the paintings. Where I come from, this bag carries more than clothes- it carries memory; it carries movement; it carries stories of people who leave home and people who return. Across Africa the polyprop bag is known by many names: in Kenya- the Nigerian bag, in Zimbabwe,-the Botswana bag. Different names, same meaning- a symbol of migration, of searching, of holding everything you own, and still having space left for hope. Being Home is that search, the weight, the journey, and the quiet truth that sometimes home is not a place, it’s the act of carrying yourself through the world.

This wooden stool was bought for my elder brother on my parents' first trip to Cameroon (my father's home). He was 2 at the time. Then I used it when I was born. It has been with me all of my life. These days I sit on it when making fires in the winter, and on occasion just for the sake of it. It reminds me of family and what love and care can look like.