Jonathan Schechner’s Photographs Explore The Complexity Of Place And Belonging

Where is home? Is it the place you live in, or the place that you left behind? For Schechner, this question has a multiplicitous and possibly unknowable answer. Since moving to America from Israel as a teenager in 2005, he has been plagued by the complexity of this dynamic. As the title of his series intimates, even after 14 years, Vermont seems temporary—but does that mean it is not home? The ordinariness of the scenes that populate the series belies the tenderness of Schechner’s gaze upon them. Such emotion feels evident in his use of light, cool and clean as it cuts across the frame. It is apparent in the tactility of skin on skin, and in his portraits; faceless and anonymous. In his statement about the purpose of the ongoing project, Schechner explained that ultimately, it is a way of “processing his own sense of not belonging where he lives”.