The Mattress Factory’s newest solo exhibition asks a question everyone carries: what makes a place home? Home Is Not A Place, by artist-in-residence Akea Brionne, is now on view at the museum’s 1414 Monterey annex in Pittsburgh’s North Side, presented in partnership with the Pedantic Arts Residency.
Brionne works between lens and fiber — photography and textiles — exploring how colonial and imperial histories echo through identity, cultural storytelling, memory and assimilation, with a particular love for Creole culture and the wider African Diaspora. The result is an installation that treats home not as an address but as something woven from stories, images and threads carried across generations.
The exhibition opened with a member preview on October 16, complete with an artist talk, and continues the Mattress Factory’s nearly fifty-year mission: giving artists time, space and a whole building’s worth of rooms to dream in. Visitors can pair Brionne’s show with the museum’s beloved permanent installations by James Turrell, Yayoi Kusama and Greer Lankton, all a short walk apart in the Mexican War Streets.
The museum is open Wednesday 11 a.m.–8 p.m. and Thursday–Sunday 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Details at mattress.org.
Photo: Mattress Factory
