No Place Like Home
Wednesday 6 September to Sunday 15 October 2023
At ArtHouse Jersey at Capital House + unexpected locations around the Island
Capital House, 8 Church St., St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands, UK. Tuesday to Sunday 10:30am - 6pm. Closed Mondays
No Place Like Home is curated by Rosalind Davis and Laura Hudson and presented by ArtHouse Jersey.
Listen to Justin Hibbs Interviews with artists who feature in his installation here.
No Place Like Home takes as its starting point a subject of increasing concern and tension in the 21st century, affecting all aspects of society and identity. Home is a loaded word, meaningful to each of us. Twenty-three acclaimed artists cast multiple threads of inquiry to consider the idea of Home for this exhibition.
When we think of home do we think of planet earth or something on a smaller scale; the shelter we find to sleep or the relationships that hold us together? Across the UK, homes are less affordable now than they have been at any time in housing history. The context for this show is the Channel Island of Jersey where rents and mortgages can reach an eye-watering 90% of income. We may all yearn for a home but this basic need is charged with political, social and economic realities; borders shift, relationships fracture, rules change, and forced migrations impact on the incredibly fragile thing that we call Home.
Home can be a sanctuary or a place of danger, it might be stable or temporary, intimate or shared, rooted for generations or a refuge in times of need. Home might be a person, a community to which we belong or contested land that is no longer available to us. Always more than the sum of its architectures, homes are full of histories, meanings and tensions; subject to external forces and internal dramas.
No Place Like Home delves into personal stories, global issues, childhood memories, and speculative worlds as well as the bleak realities of the current housing market. Addressing raw and painful topics such as war, migration, violence, love and loss, these artists do not shy away from difficult issues, but rather tackle them with inventiveness, honesty and hope.
The exhibition features newly commissioned artworks by Rachel Ara (Jersey), Sasha Bowles (UK), Ana Čvorović (Bosnia/UK), Justin Hibbs (UK), Daria Koltsova (Ukraine/UK), Will Romeril (Jersey), Lindsay Rutter (Jersey), and Lisa Traxler (Isle of Wight/UK) alongside existing artworks work by artists including: Jananne Al-Ani (Iraq/UK), Jackie Berridge (UK), George Bolster (Ire/USA), Peter Jones (UK), Peter Liversidge (UK), Harriet Mena Hill (UK), Kate Murdoch (UK), Ravelle Pillay (South Africa), Saba Qizilbash (Pakistan/UAE), Martha Rostler (USA), Judith Tucker (UK), Joanna Whittle (UK), Eddie Wong (Malaysia/NZ) and Andrea V Wright (UK).
No Place Like Home also extends beyond the gallery that included Luke Jerram’s Floating Earth, an ode to the precious planet we live on and the fragility of water sited at Queen’s Valley Reservoir, (14-24 September), Rachel Ara’s Dissent Module, an otherworldly happening that leaves its debris by the roadside and in our minds, and a new iteration of Lisa Traxler’s sculpture Ghost Echo, sited at the entrance to Jersey War Tunnels that draws upon occupation history, bunker structures and early warning radar systems.
Within the gallery exhibition at Capital House, Justin Hibbs’ For the Attention of the Homeowner takes the form of a living room in which visitors are invited to assume a temporary residence in a space curated by the artist. For the Attention of the Homeowner reflects upon ideas of possession and memory and, as homeowners, visitors can open mail, play records, read books and curate their own 'shelfies'.
