“Return: Home” Panel Discusses Urban Dwellings, Art and Activism

Dilshanie Perera

The artists assembled in the Arts Council of Princeton’s (ACP) inaugural exhibit “Return: Home” explore the notion of home in various media, including painting, photography, sculpture, silkscreen, and video. Introducing Thursday’s panel discussion entitled “Urban Dwellings: Between Blight and Activism,” E. Carmen Ramos, the curator of Exhibitions at the Arts Council, characterized the four artists on the panel showcasings work in “Return: Home” according to their common concerns regarding urban renewal, gentrification, and displacement. Executive Director of the Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness Herb Levine co-moderated the discussion with Ms. Ramos.

The artists, Manuel Acevedo, Kate Graves, Eva Mantell, and Andrew Wilkinson, all New Jersey residents, explained the thought processes behind their work and spoke about the tensions present in the notion of home.

Mr. Wilkinson was commissioned by the Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness to develop a project involving the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK), at which he spent six months filming. His work incorporates “Loop Kitchen,” a 2 minute and 57 second video piece as well as four photo prints in the style of Jeff Wall. The video contains three kinds of entwined footage. In the black-and-white video portraits of attendees and workers at the soup kitchen, the camera pulls back. Mr. Wilkinson describes his choice of movement as symbolizing how “so many people draw away when confronted with homeless people.” The close-up portraits of faces create an intimate exchange of gazes between the viewer and subject. The other footage in the video restores color but alters time. Cans being opened by an electric opener are closely examined in a slowed down rotation, and time is accelerated in a wide shot of the TASK cafeteria, which displays constant activity. Mr. Wilkinson noted that between 400 and 900 meals are served each day, and wanted to convey the dynamism and motion.

The digital photographs that are part of the project are described by Mr. Wilkinson as “painterly” in his attempt to move away from an obvious photo to the realm of careful composition and premeditated interplay of colors. In them, Mr. Wilkinson works with three homeless or formerly homeless men to create scenes of domestic life that appear to be inside, but later reveal themselves to take place out of doors. The input and role-playing of those who collaborated with him were cited by Mr. Wilkinson as integral to the creation of the portraits.

Ms. Graves’s bronze sculptures can be seen inside and outside the Arts Council. They are part of a series entitled “Zero Tolerance Area,” which depicts five abandoned buildings in Trenton. Having moved from California to Trenton to work at the Johnson Atelier, Ms. Graves noted that she “liked the evidence of people living here and the layers and detritus.” Seeing the abandoned buildings on her commute to work each day “hit her in a different way” and she was inspired to make the sculptures. Ms. Graves is interested in ideas concerning the “American Dream” and “how it relates to how we live.” The process of asking “how much house do you really need?” was juxtaposed against the impact of gentrification, the social history of Trenton, and the looming of the abandoned mansions, all of which informed her work.

Ms. Graves described becoming an impartial witness to the process as she works, saying, “It’s not about me at all anymore. It’s about making work with people. It’s about noticing and documenting.”

Ms. Mantell worked with students aged 4 to 19 from HomeFront to create Floating City, a multi-media installation suspended from the ceiling of the Taplin Gallery at the Arts Council. The students, all of whom live in transitional homes or are deemed “at risk,” attend a weekly art class at the ACP. For the project, they were asked to think of the Arts Council as a “home for creativity” and what that could mean. What resulted is a community of magical, colorful, interconnected houses that hangs in midair. Ms. Mantell described being deeply moved by the experience, saying that “when kids do art, it’s coming from their soul, their sense of optimism and joy.”

Mr. Acevedo’s project involved color photography and the camera obscura. He traveled to Cleveland as part of a residency during which he made the pieces shown in “Return: Home.” Instructed not to “arrive with an idea,” he said the goal of the project was centered around social engagement. Having been intrigued by the properties of the camera obscura and pinhole photography, Mr. Acevedo proposed a collaborative project in which rooms of homes of various Cleveland artists would be converted into camera obscurae. The photos were long exposures, and show the interior home space complete with a projection of the outside world reflected upside-down on a wall. His work incorporates historical research into the camera obscura, as well as optical calculations, color theory, and extensive documentation of the process.

In summarizing the artists’ work, Mr. Levine described the pieces as bridging the literal and conceptual distance between inside and outside. He lauded them as “having gotten us beyond the visceral pang to an actual presence.” And he noted that the works make accessible to the viewer the real people who live or seek homes in these urban dwellings.

The subsequent discussion between the moderators, artists, and audience members explored the idea of home itself and how it translates into individual experience.

“Return: Home” can be seen in the Taplin Gallery of the Paul Robeson Center for the Arts until September 6.

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