By documenting and sharing objects created by artisans from a diverse sampling of religious and cultural communities in Durham, Home Made Visible provides a compelling lens into the collective identity of a city in flux. Since 1960, Durham County's population has more than doubled, and the community has grown more ethnically diverse. Culturally expressive art forms, celebrations, and ceremonies reflect the tenuous balance between the demands of assimilation in a new environment and the desire to maintain the traditions and practices of communities whose way of life may no longer exist.

Home Made Visible is a project that explores the folk and ethnic traditions reflected in the handmade objects of Durham residents. When we talk about a sense of place, we must acknowledge our multi-centered relationship to what we call "home." The lives of traditional artists and the objects they create help us understand the changing nature of Durham in 2002. How do residents reveal their personal and cultural ties to Durham through the traditional arts? How do the material creations of local people combine to define the landscape of our community culture? The traditional art objects presented in this exhibition articulate—and document—tangibly and deeply the identities, traditions, cultural values, and beliefs of their makers. The Center for Documentary Studies, through the work of its staff, the fieldwork team that collaborated on this project, and the greater Durham community, offers this exhibition as a way to witness and better understand continuity and change in our shared cultural landscape, our Durham home.