Have you ever walked into a space and just felt the energy shift? It's palpable. Some places just seem emotionally charged. But not everyone feels the space the same way. There is a reason for that. Energy exists alongside matter. Kind of like a luminous glow around and through it. If there was a build up of energy lingering in a space, it may be in tune with some of the energy you are carrying with you, which makes it resonate or attract. Therefore recognized on some level and felt. Accumulated energy / settled or stuck, will influence anyone to some degree because we are all part of our energetic environments. We are energy.
When I hike or wander through spaces and places I'm often hit with a feeling, sometimes stronger than others. Possibly coming from the events that played out there or the people that lived there or both. We don't know what recently passed through or what is buried below. In the area I live, I know that a lot of the places I walk through were inhabited by Native Americans, who were of course tapped into the heartbeat of the land in ways that created a strong energy exchange still encapsulated in the matter of the places I pass through today.
In my work I use simple house forms as a placeholder for this felt energy. Each house is a life or a person or people - is presence past and present.