Exhibition asks what ‘home’ means

How do people understand the concept of home as individuals, and as members of a community? Beginning in 2022, artist Lelia Byron spoke with approximately 40 residents of Springfield, Ohio, inviting participants to reflect on the meaning of home. Drawing on these conversations, the artist created a series of large-scale paintings that investigate how home is created, remembered, experienced, lost and reinvented. The work takes Springfield — a city shaped by decades of change — as a point of departure, raising themes relevant to communities across the U.S. navigating the effects of deindustrialization while imagining and building new futures.

“The Names We Give to Home” will be on view Oct. 7 to Dec. 4 at Dittmar Gallery in the Norris University Center at Northwestern University. Exhibition curators are Clare Kirwan and Chloe Wang.

Weaving together vibrant patterns, people and places, Byron portrays “home” as something continually created through relationships, memory, care and collective action. From the creation of a community food garden to the sustaining role of creativity in everyday life, the loss of one’s home to the restoration of a historic Underground Railroad safehouse, the paintings reveal how larger social and economic forces are experienced through neighborhoods, families, friendships and acts of mutual care.

“The Names We Give to Home” explores what is possible when people imagine the meaning of home together.

An opening reception with the artist will take place Wednesday, Oct. 7 from 6-8 p.m. For more information visit the Dittmar Gallery website.

About the artist

Byron is an interdisciplinary visual artist working at the intersection of art and human rights through research-based, investigative and community-rooted projects. In her work, her painting functions as both a method of investigation and a visual narrative, where stories, testimonies, photographs and material traces are gathered, layered and reworked. Byron is interested in how large-scale issues manifest in the personal lives of individuals. Moving beyond broad political histories, she focuses on how people confront forces beyond their control — and on the personal and emotional dimensions often not told by official historical narratives.