"Far from Home" at the North Carolina Museum of Art

Museum Anthropology editorial board member and the North Carolina Museum of Art's Associate Curator of Contemporary and Modern Art Kinsey Katchka has just opened an exhibition examining themes of "displacement and relocation in the global community." The exhibition project, titled Far From Home includes new media elements such as a weblog and podcasting. Kinsey invites the museum anthropology community to participate in the dialogue that the exhibition will hopefully produce. The press release follows. All of the exhibition's media projects, as well as general information can be found here.


Lalla Essaydi, Silence of Thought #2, Proposed purchase, North Carolina Museum of Art, Art Trust Fund, 2008, Courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York. © 2003 Lalla Essaydi

RALEIGH, N.C.—On February 17, 2008, the North Carolina Museum of Art opens Far from Home, an exhibition of 29 works of art that address the displacement of people and populations in the global community as they relocate for economic, political, educational, or familial reasons. Admission to the exhibition is free.

Drawn from both public and private collections, Far from Home features 20 of today’s most compelling artists—both widely acclaimed and up-and-coming—from diverse national and cultural origins, many of whom have never been exhibited in this region and appear at the North Carolina Museum of Art for the first time.

Whether focused on the individual or larger community, works of art in the exhibition speak to the expansion of global networks as people relocate and travel, making their way in new places while maintaining connections to homelands and heritage, however tenuous.

“Focusing on the artists’ own narratives alongside processes or conditions such as displacement, separation, and belonging allows for a more nuanced, global identity and for commonalities not often accommodated within the gallery space–among artists, and viewers as well,” said Kinsey Katchka, associate curator of modern and contemporary art.

Artists include Ghada Amer, José Bedia, Jane Benson, Skunder Boghossian, Tseng Kwong Chi, Achamyelah Debela, Ruud van Empel, Lalla Essaydi, Maria Elena González, Seydou Keïta, Hung Liu, Ledelle Moe, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Youssef Nabil, Brigitte NaHoN, Vik Muniz, Michal Rovner, Lorna Simpson, Sebastião Salgado, and Renée Stout.

Far from Home explores various ways that displacement takes visual form in creative expression. Some works offer recognizable images that portray visible transformations of peoples’ identities, while some illustrate spaces of departure, arrival, or dispersal. Other, more abstract forms may accommodate a wider scope of interpretations, as personal changes take place alongside wider group dynamics of belonging and exclusion.

Far from Home will be at the North Carolina Museum of Art February 17, through July 13, 2008.

Far from Home has been organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art. The exhibition is made possible, in part, by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources and the North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation, Inc.

For more information about the exhibition or the N.C. Museum of Art, visit www.ncartmuseum.org or call (919) 839-NCMA.