Through an Open Lens: Reframing Homelessness and Hunger

Photography of Amy Martin and Michael Collier

— ONLINE: SEPTEMBER 16-DECEMBER, 2020

Introduction

— Cathy Small, Ph.D.

This exhibit highlights portraits of our neighbors in the Flagstaff community who experience homelessness and hunger (or insecurity about having enough to eat).

When anthropologist Cathy Small asked the question, “What adjectives would you use to describe the last homeless person you encountered?,” the responses were largely negative, ranging from words of aversion and alarm (such as dirty, lazy, drunk or aggressive) to those of pity (depressed, old, mentally ill or lonely). Local homeless people she interviewed, like those experiencing homelessness and food insecurity everywhere, suffer under the weight of these perceptions. To be seen as the label “homeless” is to be painted with a master identity that often eclipses everything else that you are. Where did you grow up? Are you good at math? Who loves you? Do you like to exercise, or tell jokes, or sing?

The images offered in this show are meant to extend our gaze beyond the labels of “needy” or “homeless.”

Michael Collier applied a lens of kindness to his photographic encounters at the Flagstaff Family Food Center, which can be sensed in the way his subjects look back at him. The color in his photographs brings out the individual nuance of personality and energy that is often lost in the label of homelessness.

Amy Martin’s black and white photos of residents at Flagstaff Shelter Services reflect the starkness of the conditions under which some people live, but capture the humanity that shines through nonetheless. Her work connects us to those who have been marginalized by stigma, stereotype and judgment.

As you view the images in this exhibit, realize that you and your reactions are tied to the story of homelessness, part of the way that people without homes or enough to eat experience themselves through you. So consider both the images, and your own inner response to the images. What can I see in the photo beyond what I am usually primed to see about people “homeless” or “hungry?”

What is your own perceptual lens, your inner attitude as you look at each photo? Curious, concerned, pitying, friendly, critical, hopeless, guilty, inspired? What is not there in the faces you see? What further understanding might we gain thru real conversations with our neighbors in need of food and shelter?

Cathy Small, Ph.D is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at NAU, and author of a recent book, The Man in the Dog Park: Coming Up Close to Homelessness with Jason Kordosky and Ross Moore, Cornell University Press, 2020. Meet the authors.

For more information or to contribute to the important work of Flagstaff Shelter Services and Flagstaff Family Food Center, please check out the following links: