2023: Anonymous to me

"I need to go home early— they're building this huge apartment building where I live and we are fighting against it. It's so out of character with the neighborhood"

1995: Mom and I

"Where is Grandma from?"

"Ireland, it's across the sea"

"Why did she leave?"

"I don't know. Sometimes it's just too hard to stay"

2007: Dad and I

“The town put a lien on our house and we don’t have the money to pay for the debts— 

I don’t know what we are going to do”

“Are we going to lose the house?”

“I’m praying to God that we don’t!”

“What are we going to do about the cats and dogs?!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know”

1996: Mom and I

“That magazine, Better Homes Than Gardens, is pretty. I wish our house looked like that”

“It’s Better Homes AND Gardens, and that magazine is for rich people”

2012: Habitat for Humanity

On the first day to the build-site we drove past a dead dog on the side of the highway, where in the Miami haze, mullein grew tall.

Antennas to heaven. Please send this SOS.

We drove for another half an hour until we got to the housing development.

To lay the tile, you had to follow a particular pattern. 

It was nearly impossible to know if we were doing it right, the tile was the kind hospitals have

but without the shine of wax and other cleaning supplies— it didn’t smell like bleach

Just Kliz primer, our sweat, and Florida air.

No amount of sweeping could remove all that dust.

We sat outside to eat our lunch on the sidewalk.

Everyone talked about going to South Beach later that night.

All I could think about was the dead dog

As the mullein on the sidewalk grew high around me.

These recollections are my personal experiences and observations around the idea of home. Beyond the physical structure that a home makes, I am challenging the economic, societal, and governmental structures that make securing a safe home and community, what is still imagined as the American Dream, a Sisyphean feat for many. Better Homes Than Gardens is as much an autobiography as it is a mirror to what many Americans may not want to admit— complicity in the nationwide housing and poverty crisis. 

After my parents passed away in 2017, I looked at the house we lived in. It was dirty and nearly uninhabitable. By taking from my family’s lived experiences and what I have realized about my home, my neighborhood, my city, and my country, I am left with uncomfortable observations about the human condition. We were always one bad day away from losing our home. Since then, I have developed a concept-driven practice that incorporates painting, photography, and installation. In this exhibition, I warp Cash for Houses scam signs, use 3D printing to recreate the home I nearly lost, and create moments of whimsy with nostalgic elements such as a neon sign and a custom View-Master toy to subvert the notion of shared prosperity. There is a hauntological underpinning coursing through my process. What futures can we arrive at if we are still living within the specters of the past?

In 1938, a federal agency called the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) assessed the mortgage lending risk within neighborhoods of major cities, including Boston, and created maps. Distressingly, racial and ethnic diversity was a cause for demerit on these HOLC maps, with communities of Black people, Jewish people, and immigrants often described as “infiltration” or “encroachment.” Thus the creation of redlined cities— economically and racially segregated to this day.

 An early memory I have is one of my father mowing the lawn, cutting down the flowering weeds that flourished in our yard. Have you ever thought about what a weed really is? A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, growing where it is not wanted. The “weeds” in Find Your Lot in Life are all edible and medicinal, with rich histories in Black folk medicine, Indigenous American cultures, and my own ancestors in Ireland and the Pale of Settlement. Like all weeds, these plants grow in inhospitable soil and environments, they give nutrients back to the earth. What can we learn from our treatment of these plants and the natural world?

Most people who view this work will ask, how can I help? The housing crisis and widening wealth gap are undeniable, and its effects are felt everywhere. The lenticular sign Would You Be My Neighbor? uses popular lawn signage of liberalism and exposes the darker underbelly, with written responses from Boston residents against housing developments, from East Boston to West Roxbury. It seems as though Black lives and the lives of those less fortunate only matter when they are not inconveniencing those who are already secure. 

It is my fervent hope that we ask ourselves, will we make better homes for each other, that we find home within one another? In the richest country in the world, I believe the survival of our democracy depends on it. 

Bio:

Krystle Brown (they/them) is a multimedia artist based in Salem, MA. Their work explores the connections between class, ancestry, place, environment, and labor, often embracing the role of family archivist and community documentarian. Combining these themes, Krystle creates multimedia installations and photographs that explore the inherent power dynamics in these topics. They hold a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Painting and Art History and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University.

While studying at SMFA at Tufts, Krystle was awarded the Montague Travel Grant to research in Northern Ireland to understand political strife through the 20th and 21st centuries. From 2019 to 2021, they were an Emerging Artist at Kingston Gallery and had their first solo show in March 2021. In 2022 they began a community art project, “Calling Home,” as an artist-in-residence with the Urbano Project in Boston, MA.

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