Stories of Home: Photographs by Bill Bamberger

December 3, 2003 - March 7, 2004

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"The meanings of 'home' and homeownership are interwoven with our dreams for the future and of the past.” —Bill Bamberger 

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This exhibition is the culmination of “This House Is Home,” an initiative organized by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through its Center for the Study of the American South and Center for Urban and Regional Studies.

In 1999, Lyndhurst Prize–winning photographer Bill Bamberger joined the University of North Carolina’s Center for the Study of the American South as a visiting fellow. Inspired by Bamberger’s work with low-income, first-time homeowners in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the university partnered with The Enterprise Foundation and the National Building Museum to launch a unique multidisciplinary venture, “This House Is Home.” In addition to encouraging new scholarship and hosting a national conference, the initiative would explore the meaning and impact of affordable-home ownership in America through the arts.

Bamberger’s previous efforts in Chattanooga—where he photographed and interviewed the residents of urban communities transformed by the nonprofit Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise—served as the project’s touchstone. The innovative public arts initiative melded photography, oral history, and architecture. Gregory Snyder, associate professor at the University's College of Architecture in Charlotte, North Carolina, designed and led the construction of a mobile art gallery. This gallery was not only envisioned as a way to bring first-rate art directly to the populations that were the initiative’s focus, it was also designed to serve as a studio, production facility, and classroom for the project.

With assistance from the local office of The Enterprise Foundation, one of the nation’s leading advocates for affordable housing, Bamberger arrived in San Antonio, Texas, in March 2002. During the spring and summer, the mobile gallery was sited on the predominantly Mexican-American west side of the city—just blocks from some of the first Habitat for Humanity homes in the United States. The gallery proved to be a potent setting where many visitors, deeply moved after viewing the work from Chattanooga, began sharing their own stories of home and homeownership. The gallery enabled Bamberger to become part of the community he was capturing on film and facilitated the making of the art itself.

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“I come home from work and think, 'This is my place, and nobody can make me leave.' Nobody can make me do this or that. I just feel that I have more control of my life. I’m not depending on anyone else.” —Charles Dunn

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It was in San Antonio where Bamberger came to recognize more fully that “home” can have as much to do with family as it does bricks and mortar. Interviewees there talked less about structure and more about their ties to family, to neighborhood, and to place. As Carmen Gomez said, “Home is how you treat each other. Home is how you live with each other….It’s not owning a house. It’s not by having all this luxury. It’s just by being together.” In Chattanooga, however, as well as during subsequent trips to rural eastern North Carolina in 2002 and 2003, Bamberger found that many new homeowners spoke evocatively about gaining a sense of self-esteem, security, independence, and real control over their lives. By living and working with people from various backgrounds around the country, Bamberger was able to gather perspectives on what “home” means to Americans.

Stories of Home: Photographs by Bill Bamberger is the culmination of the “This House Is Home” initiative. Drawn from Bamberger’s work in Chattanooga, San Antonio, and North Carolina, the exhibition pairs compelling, large-scale portraits and intimate visual essays with excerpted interviews to reveal the powerful impact homeownership has not just on the lives of lower-income Americans, but on all of us. It is precisely the underlying, universal desire for, and notion of, “home” that gives these images their resonance.

 In the exhibition, the dynamic life of the mobile gallery is illustrated with a visual essay of its own, as is the collaborative design process that created it. And a documentary video—one component of the scholarship encouraged under the initiative—gives literal voice to both Bamberger’s and Snyder’s visions of the gallery, its life in San Antonio, and its potential future.  

Sponsors & Partners

Credits

Acknowledgements

Curator: Chrysanthe B. Broikos
Exhibition Design: MaryJane Valade and Chrysanthe Broikos
Video Components: Erin Marie Sullivan

The Museum gratefully acknowledges the efforts of Bill Bamberger, Alice Boyle, and Gregory Snyder, as well as the individuals who have assisted them in the preparation of the exhibition. The Museum also thanks our colleagues William M. Rohe, Harry L. Watson, Joseph Mosnier, Ken Lambla, Todd W. Taylor, Molly Renda, Tammi Brooks, and Carolyn Christman. Likewise, the Museum extends credit to the Lyndhurst Foundation for commissioning Bamberger’s initial exploration of affordable-home ownership in Chattanooga.

“This House Is Home: An Initiative to Advance Affordable Home Ownership in America” was organized by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through its Center for the Study of the American South and Center for Urban and Regional Studies. Conducted in partnership with The Enterprise Foundation and the National Building Museum, the initiative raised public awareness of affordable-home ownership through scholarship, community outreach, and the arts.