Home is in the Stories

As a 2023 Create Change Artist-in-Residence, Kira Joy Williams created an artistic archive that comprised portraits and oral histories recorded by Black residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Participants were photographed and discussed their experiences of making home and being Black in Bed-Stuy. Through art-making and storytelling as a way to build a record of Black stories for the future, the project was a space for Black people to memorialize and celebrate their narratives—ones that did not exclude, demonize, limit, or marginalize them. Existing online and as a pop-up installation, “Home is in the Stories” offered space to reflect on and record the experiences of people who called the (re)generative locale of Bed-Stuy home, to consider what care for Black people looked like and dream of a new future together.