Where We Belong: The Architecture of Home Opening Reception

Home is the first design any of us ever knows. It shapes how we gather, what we inherit, who we become, and where we feel we belong. Where We Belong is a month-long exploration of home from every angle: as memory and heirloom, as architecture and craft, as neighborhood and policy, as the thing we build, lose, return to, and make new.

This is a show for everyone who has ever made a place their own. Rooted families who have stayed. People who left and came back. Those who have just arrived. Renters, owners, builders, and dreamers.

Come tell your story inside a space built like the first floor of a family house. A library. A gallery. An alcove. A hearth. Each room holds a different way of remembering. Scheduled interviews are 50 minutes, a filmed conversation about your family, your history, and what home means to you, with live portraiture drawn as you speak. Bring an heirloom or a precious family object if you have one. A photograph, a quilt, a key, a recipe card, a record. The things we carry are part of the story.

Prefer to come on your own terms? Step into one of our private, noise-canceling story booths and record a memory in your own voice, no appointment needed. And if you simply want to sit a while, there is room for that too. Quiet corners to rest, reflect, and let the memories settle before you go.

Throughout the space, design stations invite you to make something with us. Leave a mark, add an object, shape the work in progress that grows and changes across the month. At one station, you can help us design Abayomi CDC’s community homeownership fund itself, telling us what real support for staying and owning in this city should look like.

Artworks by local artists will be on view and available throughout September, alongside design ephemera tracing how Detroit’s homes have been drawn, zoned, built, and reimagined. 

Your voice shapes our book, Where We Belong: The Architecture of Home, while artwork sales and our closing auction both benefit the community homeownership fund.

Every story, every conversation, every piece sold helps real families build ownership and stay home.

Event information and interview booking details are available at www.abayomicdc.org/wherewebelong

OPENING RECEPTION:

• September 10, 7-10pm

OPEN STUDIO:

• September 11, 5-9pm

• September 12, 1-5pm

• September 13, 1-5pm

• September 18, 5-9pm

• September 19, 1-5pm

• September 20, 1-5pm

UN SUSTAINABILITY GOALS

We use Detroit's UNESCO City of Design designation as a call to action for Detroiters to embrace the Sustainable Development Goals in their own communities, contributing to the active effort of solving global interconnected issues.