curated theme
HOME

Home is a fluid concept. It is a space, a habitat where we celebrate the connectedness and love. Home can be warm, like being snuggled by the fireplace on a wintry night. It can be layered with years of living, carrying the traces of time. It can be about being hosted, or a yearning to belong. It is either portable or rooted, vivid or lonesome, minimalistic or baroque. It is where we always find solace and grace. Yet, home is so personal that none of these descriptions may hold true for you.

Verlyn Klinkenborg explores the multilayered meaning of home in ‘The Definition of Home’ (Smithsonian Magazine). He describes home as a conscious way of organizing our mind — so familiar that we rarely notice it. Yet, when we return after time away, a brief moment of estrangement can surface, as if home has shifted in our absence. But this feeling fades quickly, reminding us of home’s deepest nature, ¨a place we can never see with a stranger’s eyes for more than a moment.¨ And yet, this unsettling feeling compels us ask: does home change, or do we?

For some, home remains a lifelong search, a nomadic journey. Our past is shaped by life-changing experiences, each one altering us forever. We can no longer relate ourselves to where we were born. And yet, the one place we call home first—our birthplace—is something we never choose. Each interaction between the self and its surroundings plants a seed in what we call home. It has inspired and continues to inspire us—to sing our sorrows, to celebrate, and to commemorate.

Is home a location where a project is brewing? Is home a subject that constantly drives you to question your identity? How does home shape your perception of the world around you?

01: Explore

Lothar Osterburg, Entering Yesterday's City of Tomorrow, photogravure on gampi mounted, 27" x 69.5", 2011
Image Courtesy Lesley Heller Gallery

Photogravue

Photogravure is an intaglio printing process that dates back to the late 19th century, known for its ability to reproduce detailed photographic images with rich tonal depth. By etching an image onto a copper plate, it captures the nuances of light and shadow, creating prints that are both tactile and visually captivating. This technique, revered for its historical significance and artistic potential, continues to be used by a select group of artisans to produce high-quality, timeless works that bridge the gap between photography and printmaking.

William Kentridge, Studio Life: Blackboard (2021)
image size 44cm x 54cm (17¼” x 21¼”) Published by David Krut Projects

Roy DeCavara, 5 Men, 1990 plate (1964 negative), image size 21 x 27 cm

Jon Goodman, Lone Tree, North Canyon, image size 26.3 x 33 cm

Alfred Stieglitz, On the Seine – Near Paris, 1897 plate (1894 negative), image size 16.8 x 26.7 cm, sheet size 35.5 x 43 cm

Adam Fuss, My Ghost, 2003, image size 31.5 x 43 in

A nineteenth-century child’s dress is carefully laid out for our viewing. Perhaps, because we are aware that it is a part of lost time, our thoughts go to its missing inhabitant- an ethereal presence, intricate to the weave of the fabric before us.

- Adam Fuss

A studio visit with artist Lothar Osterburg in Red Hook, NY. Lothar is a multi-disciplinary artist working in sculpture, photography, and printmaking. In this video, we delve into his unique use of the 19th-century printmaking process of photogravure in his work. Discover the inspiration and techniques behind Lothar's art in this exclusive studio visit.

Photographer and printer Carol Munder uses photogravure and a 1970’s toy camera to create her haunting yet enticing images.

The Philips Room is the first photogravure release by William Kentridge, featuring a still life of oversized paper sculptures set against a charcoal drawing of the Philips Room in the Johannesburg Art Gallery, made for City Deep. Created in his studio, these sculptures served as references for a series of charcoal still lifes filmed during lockdown. The work draws inspiration from the still life imagery of Italian artist Giorgio Morandi.

'Radiant' is a photogravure series by German photographer Antje Hanebeck, capturing the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha through light, shadow, and architectural form. Using the antique technique, she offers a fresh interpretation of I. M. Pei’s design. This film documents the prints’ creation by artisan Fanny Boucher at Atelier Hélio’g in France.

Discover the exceptional savoir-faire of artisan Fanny Boucher, a Master Artisan since 2015, who preserves the rare art of photogravure in this episode of Secrets d'atelier by Connaissance des Arts.

02. Listen

For our audio feature, we’re tuning into On Working with William Kentridge, where master printer Jillian Ross shares her experience collaborating with the acclaimed artist. Through years of working together, Ross has translated Kentridge’s visions into print, navigating the delicate balance between technique and interpretation. Their process is one of dialogue, discovery, and trust—an exchange that reveals the essence of artistic collaboration.

It’s just a translation. Everything is a translation of something else—from sculpture to painting, then onto a couple of plates. It’s the same image, translated again. And then you can play around with it, and an idea emerges from that. Everything is on the periphery.

Jilian Ross

On Homing In, legendary fashion photographer Nick Knight reflects on his early influences, from growing up in Paris to shaping his distinctive creative vision. He shares insights into the impact of architecture on emotion, the role of AI in creativity, and the profound way our living spaces shape our lives. Satisfying our curiosity, Knight offers a glimpse into his own studio-home, revealing how the spaces we inhabit can inspire and transform artistic practice.

There’s nothing more important than the spaces you live in, for shaping you, how you feel about things, making you feel positive about life and love.

Nick Knight

03. Read

Jonas Mekas’s I Had Nowhere to Go is a deeply personal diary of exile, tracing his journey from war-torn Lithuania to the streets of New York City. Often called the "godfather of American avant-garde cinema," Mekas captures the disorientation of displacement, the resilience of the immigrant experience, and the solace found in art. Described as “a universal story… emblematic of human existence,” the memoir offers a raw, unfiltered account of longing and adaptation. It is a profound meditation on home—both lost and found—urging us to reflect on our own sense of belonging.

04: Photobooks

Pictures from Home (MACK)

Larry Sultan

Larry Sultan’s Pictures from Home is an intimate exploration of family, memory, and the shifting meaning of home. Over a decade, Sultan photographed his parents in their California home, blending images, text, and home movie stills to reveal the tension between personal memory and the myths we create. Both tender and unsettling, the book challenges the ideals of the American dream, offering a deeply personal yet universal meditation on family and identity.

My Husband (Torch Press)

Tokuko Ushioda

My Husband is a hauntingly intimate exploration of love, loss, and memory. Through fragmented images and text, Małgorzata Stankiewicz constructs a deeply personal yet universal meditation on absence and the traces left behind. The book is a quiet, evocative reflection on the ways in which home is shaped by those we love—and how its meaning shifts in their absence.
4o

Home is Where the Dog Is (Self Published)

Erik Van der Weijde

Home Is Where the Dog Is is a heartwarming photographic tribute to the bond between people and their dogs. Through intimate and playful portraits, the book captures the warmth, companionship, and sense of home that dogs bring into our lives. It’s a celebration of the simple, everyday moments that define what home truly means.

Exiles ( Aperture)

Joseph Koudelka

Exiles by Josef Koudelka is a poignant exploration of displacement and belonging. His stark black-and-white images capture solitude and restlessness across Europe, reflecting his own nomadic life. More than a document of migration, Exiles is a poetic meditation on life on the margins and the search for connection in an ever-shifting world.

A Bright Room (Fugensha)

Shingo Kanagawa

“While it may have been desire and love that brought the three of us together, it ius ot what connects us now. I think what we share now would be better described by the word friendship (though I can’t say with confidence that I understand the difference between love and friendship well). As our relationships continue, the meaning of (and need for) sexuality keeps changing.”
― from Shingo Kanagawa’s afterword

Silence is a Gift (Chose Commune)

Ciro Battiloro

Like a door into their intimacy and captivating simplicity, Silence is a Gift gently celebrates the inhabitants of Southern Italy, a region still scarred by modern tragedies.

Family (光琳社出版 )

Yurie Nagashima

This book is a compilation of such family photos, and although the person herself says that it is a book with a "private atmosphere" and "universal scenery," the appearance of a stark family and a family that is sometimes nostalgic. A book in which the daily life of she also writes that the two emotions that arise from the presence of her family, "a sense of security" and "a sense of loneliness," inspired her to start taking photographs.

Home (Bluecoat)

Nick Hedges

Home by Nick Hedges is a raw and unfiltered exploration of Britain’s housing crisis during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Created as part of Hedges’ work for Shelter, the National Campaign for the Homeless, the book transcends its immediate historical moment to stand today as a testament to systemic injustice. - BPJ

From Where They Came (Stanley & Barker)

Katherine Turczan

Katherine Turczan’s work is a deeply personal exploration of family, memory, and heritage. After the death of her grandfather and learning of her parents' dementia, she set out to trace her roots in Ukraine, armed with an 8x10 camera and a desire to understand the past that shaped her. Through her portraits of family members she never knew, Turczan captures the quiet moments of connection and loss, weaving a story of rediscovery and the fragile bridge between generations.

Home and Other Stories (University of New Mexico Press)

Catherine Wagner

In the photographs in 'Home and Other Stories, ' Catherine Wagner takes these precepts as her starting point. Each three-part work shows various aspects of one American home: rooms or potions of rooms and objects in ensembles that are carefully arranged for visitors or carelessly disposed in privacy.

05. From the Community

For this month’s Community Highlight, we spoke with Alison McCauley about what home means to her. It’s not a fixed place but something fluid—woven from movement, memory, and the spaces we pass through. Her book, Shimmers published in 2024, feels like an extension of that idea. Printed in a mix of duotone and silver printing, this book dares you to step into the dark heart of the French Riviera.

To me, home is not just a place but a feeling, shaped by my years of longing for a place I can belong and put down roots. After a life spent moving from place to place, I’ve finally found my home in the Côte d’Azur … a region I’ve loved since I was eighteen. This area, with its shimmering surfaces and its shadowy, hidden depths, mirrors my own journey. The light of the Mediterranean and the darker sides of its reality reflect the duality of home itself … a place of comfort and tranquility, but also of complexities and contradictions. In my project and book Shimmers, I captured both sides of this region, blending my personal love for my new home with an honest portrayal of its multifaceted nature.

Alison McCauley