HOME HERE GALLERY EXHIBITION

                               Home Here

HOME HERE is a site-specific installation curated by Lucy Rovetto that brings together the work of eleven women artists living in Jersey City, along with an honoring of Ward Mount. The exhibition’s curatorial narrative centers on history, memory, and place, presenting the gallery as a continuous environment where artworks overlap and interact rather than remain isolated. This lack of strict boundaries mirrors how personal and collective histories blend together in lived experience. The title "HOME HERE" suggests both belonging and questioning, whose home, whose history, and whose stories are preserved. The artists—including Lala Cabrera, Nicole DeMaio, Isabelle Duvarger, Jaz Graf, Kalelyn Haiper, Jin Jung, Pat Lay, Tina Maneca, Cheryl R. Riley, and Jennifer Roberts—contribute works that collectively explore what it means to remember, occupy, and claim space.

One artwork that stood out to me was the installation featuring blue circular plaques paired with a map of Jersey City and the New York Harbor (artist: Jennifer Roberts, title: Home Is Here / Were Here). The plaques reference moments such as Hurricane Sandy, the Jersey City Uprising, and Indigenous history, functioning like unofficial historical markers. The work visually resembles public memorials, yet it reframes history by highlighting overlooked or uncomfortable narratives. I chose this piece because it acts as an activist intervention into how history is recorded. Steve Lambert argues that “art can be a way of questioning power and exposing systems that are usually invisible.” This work does exactly that by questioning whose stories are normally commemorated and whose are erased. It connects to my own life because it made me think about how the places I pass every day carry hidden histories that are rarely acknowledged.

The second artwork I selected is the desk and wall collage installation composed of family photographs, paintings, and handwritten notes.(artist: Jennifer Roberts, title: Family album, Lost (&Found.)This piece recreates an intimate domestic space filled with personal artifacts, suggesting that history does not only exist in textbooks but also in kitchens, bedrooms, and everyday routines. I was drawn to this work because it felt deeply human and relatable, as if I were stepping into someone’s private archive. It functions as activism by validating personal memory as historically significant. The quote from the book that got me thinking about this piece was “activist art works best when it connects political issues to lived experience.” This piece accomplishes that by showing how individual lives reflect broader cultural histories. It connects to my own creative interests because I am interested in using personal experience as material, and this work shows how storytelling can be both emotional and political.

Overall, the curatorial narrative of HOME HERE emphasizes that history is layered, emotional, and unfinished. The exhibition suggests that memory itself is a form of resistance, especially when it centers voices that are often excluded from official narratives. By blending installations into a continuous flow, the show resists rigid categorization and instead presents history as something lived and felt. The artists in the exhibition act as storytellers and witnesses, using visual language to intervene in how place and identity are understood. Through works like Home Is Here / Were Here and Family album, Lost (& found) the exhibition demonstrates how art can function as both remembrance and activism, reminding viewers that home is not just where we live, but where our stories are allowed to exist.

Below are more art work I saw that caught my eye!