How to Build a Home
an exhibition by studio artist Diana Alsip
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, October 3, 2026 | 6-9PM
ARTIST’S TALK: Saturday, October 10, 2026 | 4PM
ON VIEW: October 3-14, 2026 | daily from 12-9PM
Constructed out of found negatives and Alsip’s personal negatives, How to Build a Home connects every day snapshots from the 1930’s to the 2000’s. The walls of these houses hold memories of birthdays, camping trips, new cars, new babies, graduations, family dinners and beach trips with friends.
Alsip creates three dimensional houses out of film, and arranges them on photographic paper in the darkroom to make photograms (with the exception of Cul de sac, which uses tiny houses projected onto the paper). The “walls” of the houses overlap and bend light, creating distortions and layers of memories. Arranged into rows and neighborhoods, Alsip plays with the relationship of these houses to one another and to the viewer. Bringing out the voyeur in all of us, imperfections in the patterns hint that the connections between families and neighbors are complicated and nuanced, but also fascinating.
Diana Alsip is a visual artist residing in Queens, NY, primarily working with film photography. She has a BFA in Photography from Arizona State University, and has exhibited work in Arizona, New York, Colombia, and Greece. Her work has been included in Musee Magazine, at Review Santa Fe 2022, and the top 200 for Critical Mass 2023.