Home of the Heart:

Photographs of Senegal

November 19, 2019 – January 22, 2020

Home of the Heart: Photographs of Senegal by Professor Robert Bellinger and Kenneth Martin
A companion exhibit to Finding Home

November 19, 2019 – January 22, 2020
Reception: Thursday, November 21, 5:30 – 7:30pm

These two long-time colleagues are drawn to a place far from their own homes:

Robert Bellinger asks: “What is home? Home is a place whose rhythms beat in synch with your heart, a place where you can relax into yourself. Home is the people – mothers cooking, men debating, children playing, and friends laughing together. Home is a feeling of comfort, of familiarity, of connectedness. Home is a place one goes to be fed, to be nourished, and to be refreshed. For me, Senegal is a home of the heart.”

Kenneth Martin found a home in Senegal and was treated as family by all he met. In the Keur Sadaro village in the Wolof Heartland, he and students were given African names and new parents during their stay.

Robert Bellinger is an educator but also an independent photographer. He considers his work to be documentary portraiture. He tries to photograph people in the moment, showing the elegance, strength and beauty of each person, whether they are working, playing, enjoying an exciting event or lost in a moment of reverie, simply being who they are. The photographs in this exhibit were taken in Senegal, West Africa during the last decade.

Kenneth Martin has been teaching Photography and Photojournalism courses at Suffolk University for more than thirty years in the Communication & Journalism Department and concurrently for twelve years in the Graphic Design Program. He has also taught multiple Study Abroad Photojournalism classes at both Suffolk foreign campuses, in Dakar, Senegal, and Madrid, Spain. He has taught Photojournalism at the School for International Training in Senegal. Martin has always held a deep concern and interest in human rights issues, especially those of minorities and the dispossessed, leading him to have a special focus in these areas as a reminder of our collective responsibility to understand the importance of assisting those in need worldwide.

Gallery Programming:

Robert Bellinger and Kenneth Martin in Conversation

December 5, 12:15 – 1:30pm