'Better Homes Than Gardens'

”Thank Your Lucky Stars’’ (custom view-master you with reel), by Krystal Brown, in her show “Better Homes Than Gardens,’’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, Aug. 30-Oct 1.

The gallery explains:

That the show “confronts the current national housing crisis and the widening wealth gap head on through the lens of autobiography, asking the viewers to grapple with their complicity in the current situation, while laying bare Brown’s family’s struggles with poverty and housing in Boston during their childhood.’’

‘When home is hard to find’

“What I Have Found (detail)” (family ephemera), by Krystal Brown, in her show “Calling Home: Family Archives’’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, through Nov. 27.

The gallery says:

“Krystle Brown compiles many layers of their late mother’s life growing up in Boston’s Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roslindale sections. Using family ephemera, photography and sound installation, Brown traces the many homes where their mother grew up and the people woven throughout her life. Part genealogy, part narrative, {the show} delves into the exploding economic inequality that threatens to unmoor social fabrics. By examining generational upheaval through displacement, Brown calls to attention the sanctity of the home, when home is hard to hold.’’

A portion of Roslindale Square on Belgrade Avenue, across the street from the Roslindale Village MBTA commuter rail stop.

— Photo by RHKindred

Boston as seen from the ESA Sentinel-2 satellite.

— Copernicus Sentinel-2, ESA

Contemplating climate change on Peaks Island

“Taking a Break” (video still), by Krystal Brown, in her show “15,000 Days’,’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, through March 28.

The gallery says Ms. Brown “contemplates climate change through the context of suspended time and death as a question rather than a finality. In this three-channel video installation, filmed November 2020 at Peaks Island, Maine, Brown utilizes conceptual motifs such as grave digging and specific costuming to speak to working-class labor, mostly the unseen work. Sound is an equally important component to the visuals of shoveled earth and a churning sea. The original poem, written by Brown, also titled “15,000 Days,’’ is performed by local Boston artist Kimberly Barnes. Experimental sound artist Adam Giangregorio provides minimalist drone music, recorded on-site at Battery Steele at Peaks Island. Through the lens of hauntology, Brown both pushes back against and concedes to an undetermined future.’’

Postcard from around 1900 showing the long-gone Gem Theater and the Peaks Island House hotel. Peaks Island is part of Portland. Its population rises from around 900 in the winter to several thousand in the summer because of people “from away” with summer houses there.