Personal Spaces: Details of American Homes

In early 2000 I began photographing the homes of people who have lived in the same place for forty years or more. The impetus for this work was a visit to my Aunt's childhood home in Jackson, Mississippi. Sitting in Mildred's dining room in a home she has lived in for forty-nine years, I realized that this kind of personal space was fast becoming one of our few remaining unique environments. Jackson, like so many other American cities, is plagued with urban sprawl that has deadened the city center and homogenized the surrounding landscape. In a country that prides itself on individualism, it is now possible to buy the same cup of coffee, the same clothes, and the same meal from one coast to the other.

Shortly after my visit to Jackson, I set out to photograph the details of American homes. I have long been fascinated with the way objects and places resonate and reveal the depth of a given moment. In these photographs, I focus on the things people collect, display and live with. As Witold Rybczynski observes, "The embellishment and arrangement of a home are a graphic (and sometimes symbolic) representation of public and private cultural attitudes toward domesticity and family life". The objects we surround ourselves with speak to who we are.

The self-imposed boundary of working in homes with forty years or more of residency by the same person was set for practical reasons. Any longer and the amount of subject matter available to me became too limited, any shorter and the passage of time was not as readily present.

In our culture we celebrate moving on, out and up. Bigger and newer are synonymous with better. I have a great respect for people who have not followed this path, but instead have chosen to stay in one place. The decision for some is very calculated and for others more ambiguous, but a strong sense of place exists in all of their homes and in them. These photographs reveal a rich labyrinth of years revealing both our past and our present.

Witold Rybczynski: Looking Around, A Journey Through Architecture, Viking Penquin, 1992.