ABOUT

"What is “home”? Instinctively, the image of a peaceful haven comes to mind. A cocoon where one feels secure, loved, and understood — a nurturing and forgiving space. Home is sweet, “home is where the heart is.” Home is family. It is a mother tongue—or multiple languages; it is comfort food and familiar faces, a beloved pet. “Home” is one’s quotidian life, and domesticity: the coziness of one’s living room, sofa, TV, books and memorabilia. “Home” is a set of coordinates: a house, a street, a town, a state, a country, an apartment in the city, a cottage by the sea. Home is where we were made. To some, it doesn’t exist in the physical world any longer: it is a memory. Home is within oneself.

In 2017, sixteen Magnum photographers were invited by Fujifilm to reflect on this universal theme, in their own style and sensibility, with the same camera. “Home,” universally known in English, was chosen precisely for its global nature, and for the inherently human sentiment that it conveys. The medium format, mirrorless camera to be used would allow for the discreet, sensitive, and intimate treatment the subject required.

Together, these sixteen visual short stories compose a remarkably beautiful, poetic and complex portrait of what “home” is, and of what it can be. They encapsulate these profound and conflicting human feelings all at once: the inside and the outside, the pleasure and the pain. This project, envisioned in Tokyo, London and New York, takes us to over ten countries, and will travel extensively throughout the world after it premieres in New York. It is a testament to what a thoughtful collaboration can give birth to. In and of itself, through the wealth of diversity, talent and depth of Magnum, it exemplifies the power and quintessential role of photography in our societies: it touches us to the core". — Pauline Vermare, Curator, Magnum Photos