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A Place To Call Home

Hosted at The Exchange between February 2023 - November 2023, A Place To Call Home, explored the concept of home and what it means. Home can be a joyful space where we hold celebrations and express ourselves, somewhere we associate with happy memories of food, family and comfort. But it can also be an unhappy or uncertain place, or somewhere we have had to leave behind. Home may not be a place at all, but a feeling that goes beyond any physical location.

About A Place To Home

In our interactive exhibition, Making Home, we invited you to respond to questions about home and homelessness. You told us that home is more than a physical place and that it can summon up strong emotions. Explore what we discovered about what home means to all of us in our follow up exhibition, A Place to Call Home.

We invite you to see homelessness, adult social care and displacement through the eyes of people who have lived experience, in an exhibition that shares the University of Birmingham’s latest research.

Through this photographic exhibition meet people from the present and the past as they share their story. 

Beverly Maynard from the Birmingham Stories research project

  • Photograph of A Place to Call Home physical exhibition with attendees

    Explore our Virtual Exhibition

    Explore our virtual A Place to Call Home exhibition for yourself. Learn more about homelessness, adult social care and displacement through the eyes of people who have lived experience, in an exhibition that shares the University of Birmingham’s latest research. The virtual exhibition contains audio content (in English) and video content. The tour is created on a platform called Matterport and works the same way as other tours that use this platform.

    Access the Virtual Exhibition

  • A comedian talking to a crowd

    Public events programme

    We ran a range of exciting events open to everyone linked with this exhibition, ranging from craft workshops aimed at children, to talks and performances.

  • A screenshot of the virtual museum containing drawings and objects that remind people of home

    Discover our online museum

    Discover our virtual museum of objects and drawing that remind people of home. Can you spot anything that reminds you of home too?

    View the Virtual Museum

Learn more about the research projects highlighted in this exhibition

What does home mean to you? 

We asked the people involved in the different projects highlighted as part of this exhibition what home means to them. Do any of these answers resonate with you?

Transcript

It is a very good way of starting a conversation, asking about home.

Place where I go after a long day at work.

Its not bricks and mortar, it's more a feeling.

Home is a place where I feel most secure, belong and loved.

Its where I can be myself

Its where my loved ones are

Where I'm greeted by my dog

Its where my memories are

and the cat

A psychological attachment to a geographical place.

Many places, all at the same time.

Home is two places in particular

I'm originally from Ireland, that's where I grew up

it's the United Kingdom, it's Oxford, where I live

And I've been living in the UK for a really long time

and it's Napoli, it's casa

So this feels like home too

And I'm surrounded by the people I love

But also the place to feel safe in experiencing the challenges that life throws

Laughter, and sorrow

And it's about more than just the bricks and mortar that make up the physical house

its home

what does

what does

What does home

home

home

home

home mean

to you

to you

to you

to you

to you

to you

to you

Use the titles below to learn about the specific research projects