Home Sweet Home

Produced with Analog Forever Magazine, curated by Jessica Burko
Reviewed in The Boston Globe

February 4 – March 15, 2024
Gallery Reception: February 9, 6-8pm

VanDernoot Gallery
1815 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140

Gallery hours: Friday-Sunday, 12-6pm

In September 2023, Analog Forever Magazine presented Home Sweet Home, an online group exhibition curated by PRC Creative Director, Jessica Burko, featuring 42 photographs created with film and analog processes. On February fourth the exhibition will be on view in person at the Lesley University’s VanDernoot Gallery featuring national and international exhibitors:

Sara Adriani (Astoria, NY, USA), Adrien Boissonnot, Church Cult & Macabre (Nantes, France), Samantha Brinkley (Rhinebeck NY, USA), Alexandra Brodsky (Red Hook, NY, USA), Jamie Ceasar (Columbus, OH, USA), Dana Christensen Sausalito, CA, USA), Sara Dicey Woodinville, WA, USA), Deanna Dikeman (Mission, KS, USA), Lorenza Fiori (Paradiso, Switzerland), Margo Geddes (Missoula, MT, USA), Karl-Gustaf Hellqvist (Västra Frölunda, Sweden), Jason Hooper (Los Angeles, CA, USA), Fred Johnsson (Hamburg, Germany), Ann Kendellen (Portland, OR, USA), Yuliya Kohal (Sevnica, Slovenia), Marie Le Moigne (Plobannalec-Lesconil, France), Caitlin Loi (London, United Kingdom), Claire Maen (Dublin, CA, USA), Jenny Magruder (Buffalo, NY, USA), Cheryl Newman (London, United Kingdom), Jian Tao Ni (Fulton, NY, USA), Dante Pineda (Lima, Perú), Katie Prock (Virginia Beach, VA, USA), Dan Sandersfeld (Tiffin, IA, USA), David Sokosh (Claverack, NY, USA), Emily Rena Williams (Baton Rouge, LA, USA)

With local exhibitors: Mark Elson (Lowell, MA), Amy Giese (Boston, MA), Karina Mackey (Dracut, MA), Brent Mathison (Maynard, MA), Coco McCabe (Ipswich, MA), Dennis Stein (West Roxbury, MA)

Since the early days of photography, domestic life has been a popular focus. Daguerreotypes and their long exposures limited available subjects to those that were generally immobile. In addition to stiff portraits, budding photographers often focused their lenses on still life arrangements and belongings found in the home. In the second half of the 19th century, when more portable photographic methods enabled cameras to leave the studio, a genre emerged of family groups posing in front of their houses along with prized personal possessions. With the advent of Kodak’s Brownie, vernacular photography burst onto the scene with the simple push of a button. The medium reached people of all ages, often turning the camera to family, and daily surroundings.

In the 20th century artists began using cameras to memorialize homelife in a new and more introspective way. Photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Larry Sultan, Tina Barney, Olivia Parker, and Jan Groover, gravitated towards capturing family, household objects, domestic spaces, and symbols emphasizing the everyday. Home Sweet Home is about the photographer’s eye turned towards the domestic. Family, friends, space, objects, the interior of life and what is held close. At some point in a photographer’s journey, whether influenced by nesting, memory, nostalgia, quarantine, or to document, inspiration strikes from within the house.

“Home Sweet Home is a glimpse into domestic space. The inspiration for this type of work might be nesting, memory, nostalgia, quarantine. The subjects are people and objects emphasizing the everyday, always looked at, but seldom seen. When looking at these images, what captures me the most are the moments of silence. Home can be a loud, chaotic place, but what the photographers here chose to depict are those precious seconds in between. Shadow and light illuminating a slice of time, sofas, chairs and beds left unoccupied, faces caught unaware in deep contemplation. Many of the images reveal small details that might otherwise be overlooked, or unintentional still lifes of scenes that are so familiar they might not truly exist but for the photograph.” Jessica Burko, 2023