10 Houses
Ten houses from the world's most densely populated cities, rebuilt by hand as miniatures and photographed without street, city, or context.
In 2021, stuck at home like everyone else, Choki went looking for houses in the ten most densely populated cities on Earth — the places where we live most tightly packed together, and where the pandemic hit hardest.
She couldn't travel, so she used Google Earth. Zooming past millions of rooftops until she reached individual façades, picking out "houses that have seen something." Each one rebuilt by hand as a miniature, then photographed against a flat white background. No street, no city, no context — just the house, alone.
It's a departure from her earlier work. Those rooms flooded, cracked, and let nature creep back in. This series has none of that. No green anywhere. Just the building, stranded.
We humans are making a mistake. We aren't treating the planet with the respect it deserves. In that sense, I see a clear parallel with the times we are living in — we humans are a virus, too.
Shown alongside the photographs are abandoned anthills and wasps' nests, displayed as sculptures. Structures built by millions of bodies, now empty. Look long enough and the parallel gets uncomfortable.
