Home is where the art is
Mar. 6—ROCHESTER — More than 115,000 people call Rochester home. Whether they were born here or moved here, they all now call the city home. But what that home looks like varies widely from person to person.
On Sunday, two artists along with Rochester community members were tasked with answering what home meant to them as part of the Rochester Art Center's community mural workshop.
The answers will become the inspiration for a mural by Vietnamese artist June Le in the Entry Corridor Gallery, located on the first floor at the Art Center.
"This is one of the things I'm more interested in exploring, as a curator and in my own art," said project curator Zoe Cinel. "It's particularly important for a place like Rochester to think about these ideas of home. It's so strangely international, even being a place that is kind of rural, far away from other big cities."
Originally from Italy, Cinel said she chose Le and artist Roshan Ganu, originally from India, as both bring a complex of experience of what it feels like to be in a new place and find your own place where you feel belong.
"It is important to think about these ideas," Cinel said. "How do the people that come to Rochester — from different parts of the world, the state — how do they make themselves at home in a new place?"
Over the course of the three hour workshop Ganu and Le helped facilitate discussion and idea creation.
The 10 participants were a mix of those who were born in Rochester, those who had arrived less than a decade ago and those who have chosen to build a life in Rochester, each bringing with them a unique perspective of what home in Rochester looked, sounded and smelled like.
"While we are all from different places, we all have some things in common," Ganu said as she led the discussion.
For some participants, home was the family they brought or built in Rochester. For others, home in Rochester was represented by a welcoming community. For one Rochester resident, who was born in the city and returned after living across the country and abroad, home in Rochester meant a changing, growing diverse city.
The crows, welcomed or not, drew a large consensus from the participants as something that represented the city.
The workshop on Sunday was the third and final idea gathering session for the Twin Cities-based artists. Mural workshops were also held with a group of young people and a group of John Marshall High School students. The mural is expected to be installed later this spring.
