Where We Go, Where We Stay: Exploring Place and Identity Through Photography

Sometimes we must leave a place to realize why we do or do not want to return. Perhaps it is in those moments away that we are able to recognize what parts of that place shaped who we are. If we want to reinvent ourselves, do we need to go somewhere far away to do so? What if we are not granted the chance or privilege to leave? Socio-political factors, economic disparity, and unequal opportunity frequently influence a person’s mobility.

Identity can flow through, change because of, and reflect the places we reside. These places are also influenced by our ideas, actions and choices. There is a reciprocal relationship between place and person, which each of the artists in this exhibition explore in a unique way. Helen Levitt, Mark Goodman, Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Rebecca Busselle, Josef Breitenbach, and Deana Lawson consider an array of different places as sites of connection. Meanwhile, Bruce Davidson, Vivian Maier, Eleanor Antin and Melodie McDaniel explore the journey from one place to another and the act of existing within those transitory spaces.

With its focus on portraiture, this exhibition centers the people within these places and invites the viewer to engage in moments of self-reflection about their own connections to place and moving to, within and from places. Correspondingly, you’ll find questions on each object label inspired by the works in this show and the concurrent exhibitions elsewhere in the Loeb’s galleries that explore the intersection of land and community.

As you leave, consider these last questions: how did you get here, what brought you here, and what is making you stay?

—Léa Greenberg, Media Studies Major and Art History Correlate, class of 2025

This exhibition is generously supported by the Hoene Hoy Photography Fund. There are works that appeared in this exhibition that were loans to the Loeb and therefore do not appear on this website.