The Trauma of Home

Home can be thought of as a refuge but in this time of uncertainty home has simultaneously become the locus of safety and the focus of the trauma of isolation from which we yearn to escape. The word 'trauma' originally referred to physical wounds but has since evolved to include injuries on the mind and the self that may seem invisible but are imprints logged in our memory storage. As we live through this challenging time, we can analyze the idea of trauma through a different lens and reflect on the concept of nostalgia--itself symptomatic of a particular kind of trauma related to the notion of home. The word ‘nostalgia’ was coined from the Greek words nóstos, meaning "homecoming", and álgos, referring to pangs of acute pain in the 17th century to describe a pathological anxiety experienced by soldiers longing to return to the safety of their homes. This selection of prints is the photographer Duane Michals’s creative, personal, and poetic examination of his relation to home.