States of Uncertain Domesticities

A snail's shell, a birdhouse, a clam shell, a hut, a box, a drawer, a cellar and an attic - all these are the spaces of home for the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard. In his book The Poetics of Space, he refers to them as happy places because they evoke an ancient sense of familiarity and security. Feeling at home has not so much to do with a particular house, dwelling or place to sleep, but rather with belonging to a particular place, person or cultural space. In Bachelard's terms, a house is a set of images. "A kind of attractive force of images is concentrated around the house. Is it possible to discern, through the memory of all those houses where we have found refuge or in which we have longed to live, an intimate and concrete essence, an explanation of the specific value of all our ideas of a secure home?" The exhibition States of Insecure Homes seeks to trace the many layers of the theme of home while exploring its shifts in meaning over the past decades. An important point of reference is the pioneering exhibition Womanhouse, curated by artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro at the California Institute of the Arts in 1972, which for the first time opened up the theme of home linked to the social role of women and their work in a major way. The exhibition States of Precarious Homes focuses on the relationship between people and space, and life in different homes. It deals with the ownership or loss of one's own home, inclusion and exclusion, belonging and survival. In the set of presented paintings, the artists reflect the complex question of the world's future habitability.

The exhibition is supported by the Czech-German Future Fund.

Concept: Alba D'Urbano and Ina Bierstedt

photo: Susanne Kutter, Transform Fault II, 2023