Kara Walker @Camden Arts Center

Racism, The USA, sexuality, violence, bi-racial, slavery

City, border, body and time

Critique day, I decided to go with small black and white images, in these frames, I understand that they would also look great as colour, as pointed out by my tutor and am going to do this too, the frames are cheap pound shop ones, and I mounted the pictures myself on card, in total 8 shots, 2 groups of 4.
Overall, I am happy with these shots, I am really enjoying using a camera and finding unusual areas to shoot in video or still shots, it's an area I never thought I would be going into but I am finding that there is so much around that tells a story, I find this fascinating.
i chose to make these shots black and white because for me they gave me a sense of coldness, for others they would like them in the original colour, the views of both are very interesting and I'm happy to produce the colour too to see the response, I understood completely when my tutor pointed out that the realness of the colour shots were more in the now, rather than the black and white to her seems like a more account of times past, I guess I made this a more personal project, it was times past for me, yet the punch of using colour I undstand would translate more to today.
One student pointed out how he likes the frames, like how family photos are framed, yet this is of homelessness, he really admired how they have been presented.
I like the frames too, as they were small frames and everyone needed to get close, almost asking the onlooker to look, ask questions as when we see homelessness we often look away, maybe for the homeless person or for the situation being hard to understand, emotional or just ugly to look at.

Shelters Alleyways and Rucksack on sofa

Homelessness, looking at the images below I am not only thinking about the people on the street who are homeless, I think about children who have run from home due to abuse or neglect or other reasons, I spoke to friends who were homeless and asked them to talk about their experience, these were the words they used.
frightening, disorientating, self esteem, self worth, bricks and mortar, bankruptcy, closed doors, hyper sensitivity, panic attacks, deposit, cleanliness, enticement, loss of pride, failure, lonely, cold, hungry, anticipation, distressed, panic, crack, smack, rape, vulnerability, abuse, stressful, internal scars, paranoia, dread, anxiety, unwanted, scars on my soul, homophobia,
With these words, I thought about using them and having them spilling out of my rucksack, as these are the words that were carried around by me and some of my friends during that time.

 

 

 

 

 I wondered how many people had used this as a shelter below?

Above is a trace of someone being there, smoking and maybe making a fire.

 

 

 

 

A painting in water colour of the rucksack on the sofa.

I used the washed out colours to try to translate the drabness of the situation I often was in.

 

Homeless#3

The water colour pencil drawing of Rucksack on sofa, these colours were used to heighten the drab feelings and situations many find themselves in.