Selected Images from (T)here

Prepared for Nelda Kerr’s English Class 














When Gertrude Stein revisited her childhood home in Oakland only to find that it was no longer there, she wrote: 

"There is no there there."

This quote fascinates me. It requires that we understand how we define our relationship to place, and specificially to that place called home. It is also the jumping off point for my photography project (T)here.

Even though Stein's quote is from 1937, today's Oakland is full of similar patterns of erasure and re-making. While some are forced to leave, others are able to declare their 'there'.

But even beyond that, past the politics and economics that are shaping our neighborhoods, to hit on something even deeper, is: how do we intrinsically define a 'there'? What gives a place a 'there-ness'? What distinguishes a 'there' from a 'here'?

This project is my exploration into these questions.

Over time I have honed in on the physical home as a focal point. I believe it is one of the main things that delineates a 'there' from a 'here;' it roots us, providing the platform to exist and thrive in any given place. Without a home we have no permanence, and by extension, no sense of belonging.

Many of the photographs in (T)here are of the homes in the neighborhoods I've lived in: their textures and colors and materiality, what they hold within their gates and cultivate in their yards. These photographs are like portraits. The homes look back at us as if to say, 'here I am.'

A few years back I was visiting my mom and found a whole stack of drawings that I had made in early elementary school. They were all of homes. Picture after picture of homes. It suddenly made me realize how powerful it would be to include drawings of young people's homes in this work. These artistic self-representations of home start to get at the core of Stein’s quote.

As young Oaklanders, I want to see your drawings of home. Literally or figuratively, with words or without, exteriors or interiors...I want to see what your home looks like. A selection of these drawings will make their way into the final project, which will ultimately take the form of a book and (hopefully) several exhibitions.

I can’t wait to see what you create. Thank you!

-Dane