Untitled (2021)

In society, the homeless community is often overlooked. For every 10,000 people in Toronto, 30 are homeless, and yet we walk past them on the street as if they are nothing. As opposed to creating homes and building a social structure that allows for the safe housing of people of all income levels, we overlook the issues. This series is an attempt to draw attention to the shelters homeless people live in within our community. By including displaying the tents and shelters in colour, while making the rest of the photo black and white, this piece emphasizes the structures, without making them the main focus of the image. The framing used is such that in many of the images, the tent is not in the centre of the shot or framed as if it were intended to be the main subject of the photo. By doing this, a more engaging experience is created for the viewer, allowing them to take in the scene before noticing the tents and the weight they carry in the series. Black and white was used to represent the bleakness of the world to a person without a home, and colour was used to contrast between the bleakness of the world and the comfort of the only consistent component of these people’s lives, the mobile space that is the closest thing they have to a home. As a society, we need to begin to recognize the existence of homelessness in our communities and collectively work towards long term solutions to this deep-rooted problem, as opposed to overlooking and/or disbanding homeless encampments and labeling them as a menace to society. In the words of Wayne Chirisa, “It takes a society to combat homelessness, and a strong nation to fight poverty.”