Jake Kimble : Make Yourself At Home

In Make Yourself At Home, Jake Kimble processes a familial loss and the 2023 decimation by forest fire of one of his home communities in the Northwest Territories, through a body of work that honours and archives grief, and the personal need to repair and rebuild. In it, he examines the definition of "home” and the gravitational pull of home when needing to heal and reconnect with the land, whether physically, spiritually, emotionally, or mentally. Delving deeper, enquiry is made into the concept of home as it pertains to buildings that no longer remain, and to people who are no longer present.

Distinctive of his practice, Make Yourself At Home centers Kimble as the protagonist in his own work. It is a documentation of personal ceremony, an ongoing ritual taking place between artist and landscape. This is an archive of spontaneous moments of learning during a period of deep grief and healing. Simultaneously, the act of picking up the camera to archive this experience is central and intrinsic to Kimble’s healing process. He captures the vast terrain of the Northwest Territories through a familial and loving lens, in some instances even physically embracing the earth that lies beneath the snow.

Make Yourself At Home questions the sense of self constructed through the concept of home, whether defined by place, family, lineage, or culture. By unraveling his multifaceted relationship with home, Kimble is in parallel also exploring displacement, to examine the paradoxical nature of returning to a place that was stolen, in order to receive a gift of healing.

Make Yourself At Home  is a core exhibition for the CONTACT Photography Festival.