Home: exploring belonging

Artists:   Kevin B. Chen  Max Chen  Amy Lee  Peter Joseph Macapugay  Sue Pak  Robynn Takayama  Christine Wong Yap   Jiayi Young  Curators Main

Curatorial Statement

The idea of home is such a fundamental and human one that its actual enormity, and the absurdity of attempting to pin it down, often go unacknowledged. "Home is where the heart is," of course, "home is where you hang your hat," and so say the abundance of platitudes, but in a world characterized by constant motion, migration, and relocation, the idea of "home" grows ever more perplexing, and increasingly precious.

The word "home" evokes emotions, scenes, memories, textures, scents—an entire universe specific to the individual in question. It can be characterized as much by a sense of upheaval and loss as by a sense of comfort and familiarity. Is home where you were born? Where you were raised (and if so, which place)? Where you live now or where you have lived the longest? Does it exist in memories of people and places, or the people and places that continue to criss-cross your life on a regular basis? What happens when you are dislocated from home? How is home defined, how do you hold onto a sense of it, and how do you adapt when it begins to shift?

The notion can seem simple, even quaint, but it is invariably complex. This exhibit is an investigation of home and of belonging. The artists in this show propose images of home from interior and exterior views, from personal and impersonal perspectives, and from static and migrant states of being.

For Kearny Street Workshop itself, home has been mobile, often located in non-permanent physical spaces—office spaces, galleries and venues across San Francisco—and virtual spaces—websites, listservs, and other online communities. Our birth in the International Hotel in San Francisco's Chinatown, subsequent eviction and migrant existence throughout San Francisco, and most recent move to the Mission District have all contributed to building a sense of home that is dynamic, constantly evolving and shape-shifting to adapt to changing economic, political, and social landscapes, while still providing a truly grounded sense of belonging to many of our community members. It was KSW's most recent move to 180 Capp Street that prompted a more expansive exploration into the ways in which a sense of home is both developed and defined—and defined and redefined—inspiring this exhibit as a way to both celebrate and investigate home and belonging.

The work in this show suggests alternative ways of considering home. Some of the pieces take a look at exterior forms—cityscapes, buildings, and architecture. Kevin B. Chen's Secession series imagines a new vision of home anchored in a skyline that drifts through space, loosed from the earth, cities comprised of buildings themselves fleshed with the multitude of voices that inhabit them. Christine Wong Yap's ominous Wrought Iron Gate takes a specific external feature of certain buildings, suggesting a notion of home precariously and perilously defined by its struggle to keep out and keep in various elements and values. Amy Lee's paintings of Oakland streets that are not her own capture the structure and feel of a neighborhood as viewed from the outside, but are disturbed by intruding textures, words, and thoughts that inhabit this portrait of someone else's home.

Other work approaches home from interior, and more intimate, places: memories, the insides of homes as characterized by fireplaces and personal photographs and other objects. Sue Pak's hat form sculptures explore the homes carried within in memories and past experience, homes envisioned as dream-like and ever-present landscapes emerging from the mind. Peter Joseph Macapugay's photographs and mantle arrangements are reminiscent of a kind of domestic comfort grounded in framed snapshots, but expanding beyond that specific context to incorporate broader significance and experiences.

Other pieces examine the fluid nature of home and the ways in which an abiding and resilient sense of home and identity can be developed and characterized by migration and dislocation. The Fireplace Chat installation by Max Chen, Sue Pak, and Robynn Takayama invites viewers to experience a foundation of home built upon and reverberating with the stories of those who have contributed to its growth and identity. Jiayi Young's site specific installation explores home from an immigrant perspective, tackling the dislocating and complicated ways in which a sense of home and identity shifts as old layers fade, and new layers are added and changed.

This exhibition is not an attempt to define Home, but rather to invite you into our home to consider the multiple meanings of such a basic yet impossible concept, and to ask ourselves the question: what would it mean to be able to truly say "I'm home"?