Centered on themes of community conversation and equity in the arts, making home here will feature the work of local artists Gavin Andrew Benjamin, Naomi Chambers, Justin Emmanuel Dumas, Njaimeh Njie and Harrison Kinnane Smith. The exhibition, which will run from September 2021 through late spring 2022, is curated by Sean Beauford, local arts advocate and curator, and Sylvia Rhor Samaniego, Director and Curator at University Art Gallery at the University of Pittsburgh. making home here seeks to showcase five local artists on the boldest possible platform, all while deepening connections with the Pittsburgh community.

The exhibition plays off the ideas of home and domestic space – home as both a place of dislocation and belonging, home as an imagined or public-facing space and an intimate place that holds family stories and aspirations. The five artists explore liminality, placemaking, familial bonds and systemic racism’s impact on the housing market. Working across a range of mediums and playing off the domestic spaces of the Mattress Factory Annex, the artists mine personal and public histories to create immersive environments that welcome visitors to enter and contemplate what it means to create a home.