In the fall Rotunda exhibit, Home to Here, members of the Hotchkiss community share what home means to them through soundtracks, photographs, poetry, art, and more. The exhibit will be on display in Main Building until winter break.

The exhibit is curated by Joan Baldwin, curator of special collections, and Janan Alexandra, instructor in English, MacLeish Scholars Program instructor, and assistant director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Read their Home to Here introduction below.

Home to Here

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
Maya Angelou

There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground; there are a thousand ways to go home again.
Rumi

Consider the many sayings there are about home: You can’t go home again, home is where the heart is, and there’s no place like home, to name a few. The idea of home unites both place and feeling. For some of us, the feeling of home blossoms not where we grew up, but in another less linear space—our aunt’s kitchen, a park in summer, a small town movie theater. And sometimes we become even more aware of people and places we think of as “home” when we leave them behind.

In Borderlands/La Frontera, this year’s all-school read, Gloria Anzaldúa tells us she was the first person in six generations of her family to leave the Rio Grande Valley. She writes, “I didn’t leave all the parts of me. I kept the ground of my own being.” Like Anzaldúa we begin by rooting ourselves in our home place. But feeling at home doesn’t require four walls and a roof. We can find home in a mixture of spices coming from the kitchen, in our grandma’s laughter, in holiday traditions or a favorite object.

We hope this exhibit reminds you of the things that form the ground of your own being. As you look around, consider the ways the Hotchkiss community responded when asked the question, “What does home mean to you?” from soundtracks to photographs, poetry and art. If you meant to submit something, but didn’t get around to it, take a moment and leave your thoughts on the blackboard. We hope the Rotunda is a place to quiet your mind, and that you return often. The more we look, listen and read, the easier it is to begin belonging together in the community that is Hotchkiss.

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With special thanks to poets Janan Alexandra, Jade Fenn, Lucas Juneja, Christopher Mitchell, Zinny Ugbala, and Emma Wynn; photographers Pahal Bhasin, Caroline Reilly, Marcie Wistar, Beatrice Yorke; artists, Joan Griswold and Colleen Mcguire; audiophiles, Logan Carithers, Rosemary Davis, and Cristin Rich, as well as the Litchfield Historical Society for its ongoing support, Jason Robbins, painter, and the Hotchkiss carpenters.