House to Home

House to Home showcases cultural, ethnographic, and decorative art objects from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Oceania, ranging from antiquity to the present. Through a diverse selection of objects from the Fleming Museum’s collection, the exhibition examines the meaning of home, including our feelings of belonging that may extend beyond the physical domestic space into a more abstract sense of home.

A house defines the physical place where one lives. A home, on the other hand, is built on a foundation of relationships, experiences, and memories. Objects, too, house memories that become an extension of who we are; they can spark powerful emotions of what home feels like to individuals and groups across time and cultures. This exhibition seeks to give voice to the stories and memories carried by these ethnographic and historical objects, in order to build a shared narrative that helps us to understand the meaning of home.

As part of a semester-long project, seventeen students in Museum Anthropology 250, taught by Professor Jennifer Dickinson, worked with the Fleming Museum staff to curate the exhibition. Students were involved in all stages of the process, from research of the objects and layout of the gallery to conceptualization of exhibition themes, writing labels, and generating ideas for educational outreach. House to Home is the 12th student-curated exhibition to be presented at the Fleming Museum since 2005. 

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.