"Homelessness - we all own it" |
"Homelessness - we all own it" |
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Jane Doe 3 |
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Jane Doe 4
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John Doe 5
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John Doe 2
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Jane Doe 5
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John Doe 3
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Jane Doe 1
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John Doe 4
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John Doe 1 |
SEE OUR UNSEEN HOMELESSexhibition of portraits by
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This is Michael at the Early Morning Centre. He's a very chatty person and quite entertaining. However I could not make much sense of what he was saying which I put down to my defective hearing. After I finished painting his portrait, I was going through the photographs and the image below just jumped into my consciousness. He was leaving the Centre armed with his coffee and a few meager possessions. The umbrella was his protection from the elements and his bike got him wherever he wanted to go. His two cups of coffee suggested that he was meeting a friend.
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Sophie stayed in my converted garage for a while because she was my grand daughter's friend and she was jobless and homeless. She had problems with drugs and with some very flaky boyfriends. They did a lot of partying which was kept rather quiet, so I didn't realise the extent of the problem. Her stay with me ended because her boyfriend committed suicide and his family were after her, so that was that, much to my relief. The police and the domestic violence staff were very helpful.
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I found this person at Erindale. Unfortunately I lost the scrap of paper where I had recorded his name. For a homeless person names are very important as it's the last surviving fragment of who they once used to be. I tried to track him down but people with no fixed address just evaporate and become anonymous. This is one over riding reason why they are not noticed by politicians.
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One of the overriding problems we face is resource hoarding. Those who are well to do can hoard more resources than the rest of us. But these are hidden behind well guarded walls. We keep things as a reminder of who we are which is a replacement for a sense of community and sharing. The homeless resource hoarding is in your face, but by circumstances is kept to a minimum. The homeless person depicted here is hauling his stuff to a safe place where it won't become a target for thieves. The question is: who does the most damage to society, the rich man in his stuffed castle or the poor man with his shopping trolley of recyclables?
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Vida sat on the cold ground. She had no shoes on and it was in the middle of winter. I was sure she was Aboriginal, though I didn't ask. She was so young and vulnerable. My heart went out to her. After taking the photographs, I said goodbye. She looked at me with such pain in her eyes. I walked away feeling that somehow I had deserted her, which I had.
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We are not prepared for a tsunami of homeless people. The images of rows and rows of tents in the main street of cities has not happened yet in Australia. Or maybe we are better than the US at hiding them or helping them. This image represents the utter helplessness of people who are disabled or who are young. The anonymous shoppers go about their business, oblivious to the danger descending on them. She and her child are already in the water and they can't escape without help.. The issue of homelessness is not so far removed from a disturbed environment. Fix one problem at its source and other problems will go into retreat.
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This is my story of homelessness. I can vouch for the sense of despair, dislocation and dispossession of being homeless. I grieve for my little lost house in Narrabundah. Of all the houses I've lived in this one was the most dearest to me. It was my first home. The image depicts the trauma that poverty and its commensurate loss. Inevitably the house was demolished and replaced by a more upmarket version. It's probably someones home or an investor's nest egg. We have to stop homes from being legal tender.
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Ashleigh is a smart young woman who had trouble with an ex-partner. She told me that both she and her father were homeless. I didn't get much of her story as I was focused on getting the images. She was very self sufficient. She had clothes and blankets to ward off the cold. She also had a dog but it was elsewhere, so I painted one in. We had an animated conversation about the politics of homelessness and she was very aware of the issues.
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I depicted the hostile environment that Michael would encounter outside the comfort of the Early Morning Centre. The ravaged landscape suggests what human activity is doing to the environment. There is no path to a real home for the Michaels of our city. The way is blocked by insurmountable obstacles.
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This is Nigel, a very large man on a small milk crate with his bag of possessions which is not shown. Most of the people I have depicted are holding a flyer I gave them to describe what I was doing. They were all very accepting and pleased that somebody noticed them. Also the flyer was a bit of a distraction while I took the photos. I have placed Nigel in a garden which I thought he might like. In common with all of the volunteers, he deserved a better place to sit than on a hard milk crate.
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This is one of the three images where the homeless person is real whilst the surrounding crowd are cardboard cutouts. In this scenario, the conference delegates are there to talk about homelessness. They do it every year. It's quite a getaway for some of them. The homeless family has disappeared into the background, trying to survive the night whilst the delegates enjoy their conference dinner. Talkfests don't build houses.
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Rachel was an interesting woman. I gather from my brief encounter with her at Calwell that her life was very complicated and beset with trauma. I've placed her outside the Assembly which seemed appropriate. There is a hierarchy of power and prestige depicted in this image which I guess is inevitable if society is to run at all. At least I was able to depict the statue of Ethos as being more concerned with community than its creator envisaged. The dog sits at the bottom of the hierarchy as they are "only animals".
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