The Home I Saw: On Place and Community
Home, more than a physical structure or spatial locale, is an ideal. Home is representative of safety and refuge – a haven from outside conditions. Free of cynicism and the gaze of onlookers, home is a place of interior being and existence. Ultimately, it is in this sacred space that home helps shape notions of self-identity.
The Home I Saw moves beyond Western notions of “home” that place primacy on private ownership of land and physical structures. Rather, home is a spiritual destination, not confined by the standards of Western being. The Home I Saw is a collection of photos exploring the many ways in which homes are built with non-material properties; how home shapes self-identity; how the gaze of onlookers is diminished to a non-essential consideration.
Made in Philadelphia, at the annual Odunde Festival, and Atlanta, at Morehouse and Spelman Colleges Homecoming, respectively, The Home I Saw shows Black people creating homes: celebrating, loving, and communing in public. This work displays the ways in which people of the African diaspora build homes without walls, concrete, or steel, but with love, joy, and dance.
As a native Philadelphian, I grew up going to Odunde with my parents, serving as an event where I learned what it means to be in community. Comparatively, I spent my undergraduate years in Atlanta, GA at Morehouse College, a Historically Black College. Needless to say, these two places have become home.
These photos, taken in different cities, combine to show the many ways which homes are created, celebrated, and maintained – and how I, both a participant and onlooker, saw home in each person.
