New York Now: Home
Visual Identity, Exhibition, Architecture
Inaugural photography triennial exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York with an outpost at JFK Terminal 4
Shelter and belonging in New York City
New York Now: Home is the first installment of the city’s only photography triennial, presenting over 100 works by 33 contemporary artists from across New York City’s five boroughs. The exhibition ponders the vivid multiplicity and complexity of what it means to seek and make “home” in the city, bearing witness to the experiences of immigrant “others,” queer people of color, unhoused people, and chosen families. The exhibition architecture comprises a series of gabled roof frames, repeated at regular intervals to establish a dynamic, grid-like home-in-the-making. Temporary exhibition walls descend from this structure, defining smaller, thematic spaces—including an intimate, living room tableau. The exhibition typography is stately yet illustrative, repeating the word “New York” in a centripetal, lens-like configuration.
Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York, photograph by Brad Farwell
Tenderness and intimacy in public space
Many of the exhibition’s artists focus their lenses on their own communities, creating intimate portraits with profound political implications. Xyza Cruz Bacani, a former migrant domestic worker, documents the everyday experience of her friend Farah, a Filipina survivor of labor trafficking. Dean Majd, a self-taught fine art photographer, explores homosocial tenderness and vulnerability among his male best friends. Cheryl Mukherji, an Indian installation artist, juxtaposes self-portraits expressing empowerment and liberation alongside her mother’s traditional matrimonial photographs. The exhibition design creates an unassuming yet elevated context where these stories can reside with ease, treating artwork with dignity and restraint, while also creating a memorable sense of place.
Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York, photograph by Brad Farwell
Isometric also designed a traveling version of the exhibition at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where 10-second animations played on a multitude of supergraphic screens throughout Terminal 4. Featuring photography by Queens artists Xyza Cruz Bacani, Maureen Drennan, and Elias Williams, the animations were seen by millions of visitors and residents as they passed through the airport, identifying New York City as a shared home for all.
Intricate architecture made apparently simple
The exhibition's iconic roof trusses soar across the gallery, symbolizing home in a manner that is at once childlike and sophisticated. To ensure rigidity and strength, the trusses are actually steel beams encased in white oak veneer. They are stabilized by 1/4" steel cables that run the entire length of the gallery, painted white to disappear into the ceiling. The temporary exhibition walls float above the ground on lightweight posts that also form the wall edges, and they are laterally stabilized by the overhead system of beams, creating an integrated structure that seems effortless but is rigorously engineered for stability.
Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York, photograph by Brad Farwell
Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York, photograph by Brad Farwell
