As Local and National Housing Crises Worsen New Exhibition at UMOCA Explores the Meaning of "Home"

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Mar 29, 2023, 11:18 ET

SALT LAKE CITY, March 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As high-rise apartment complexes emerge across Utah's Wasatch Front, Salt Lake City becomes less affordable for the average resident, leaving over 25,000 individuals in Salt Lake City without a home every year. The conditions that create housing insecurity aren't isolated to Salt Lake City; there is currently a housing crisis in every major city in the world due to many factors––including geopolitical conflict, climate crisis, and wealth inequality.

A new exhibition at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Haimaz, Heimr, Hjem, Heem, Hām, Home is a broad examination of what it means to be home. At a moment of cultural, political, economic, environmental, and psychological 'home' instability for many, the exhibition investigates notions of home under the lens of the Old English word hām, which refers to a place where many souls are gathered. Through depictions of home––real, constructed, remembered, displaced, damaged, and imagined––the artists in the exhibition explore moments when home denotes both prison and refuge, revealing the potential to create home outside widely accepted definitions and norms.

Haimaz, Heimr, Hjem, Heem, Hām, Home challenges traditional and fixed notions of home by addressing issues of housing affordability, gentrification, urbanization, migration, security, accessibility, and sustainability. It explores the emotional and psychological aspects of home, illustrating the complex relationships people develop with their homes and the people they share them with. The work in the exhibition asks viewers to see home as something more flexible and fluid, and question progress and displacement.

Artists featured in Haimaz, Heimr, Hjem, Heem, Hām, Home include Willie Baronet, Epicenter, Erin Fostel, Omar Imam, Tonika Johnson, Courtney Kessel, Niko Krivanek, Calista Lyon, Frank Poor, Hrair Sarkissian, Roscoè B. Thické III, Simparch, and Tracey Snelling.

SOURCE Utah Museum of Contemporary Art