The exhibition No Place Like Home, curated by Dawoud Bey, presents a dynamic mix of photography by six emergent Chicago-based artists. Each photographer exhibits a recent series of work centered on the representation of home, and by extension, community. The resulting selection raises important questions about how we construct and represent the differences between the ideal and the more complex reality of home.
The show takes its title from The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy’s desire to leave Oz and return to a normal and secure sense of home by reciting the magical mantra. However, real life tells us that creating a secure sense of home is more complicated than clicking ones heels together. The artists in No Place Like Home examine the more prominent forces influencing the creation of a stable sense of home such as the intersection of race and class, socioeconomic influences, and political agendas. The approximately thirty works in the show range in scale and feature subject matter such as the Chicago urban landscape, estate sales, planned communities, and in some cases the artist’s own family. A series of talks, film screenings, a workshop and a symposium on The Home in/as Community will further explore the questions put forth by this exhibition.
