A local photographer is helping confront the social stigma and judgment around homelessness through her highly sought-after Sunshine Coast exhibition.
Claire Letitia Reynolds’ Changing Perceptions on Homelessness photography exhibition will kick-off next month at Maroochydore and it could not be timelier.
With more than 13,000 people sleeping rough in rural and regional Queensland on any given night, the stigma surrounding homelessness is still present.
“Since the pandemic, homelessness has become even more prolific due to the housing crisis not just on the Sunshine Coast, but nationally,” Ms Reynolds said.
“It’s a topic that a lot of people are now close to home to. It’s a very relevant exhibition.”
The exhibition will feature 20 portraits of people on the Sunshine Coast aged from two to 70 who were experiencing homelessness or who had experienced homelessness.
“It was a broad cross-section of subjects because a lot of homelessness is the people you can’t see, it’s not just people on the street,” Ms Reynolds said.
“It’s people sleeping in their cars and living room floors.
“There are obvious rough sleepers in the exhibition, but there are also other people in there you would never really think — if you looked at the person — they were homeless.”
Ana Greenfield, who helped drive the original project, said the Nambour Community Centre commissioned Ms Reynolds to take the photographs to help raise awareness of the issues of homelessness on the sunshine coast.
But the project’s goal was to also open hearts and minds to those who are homeless and to the faces of homelessness in our community.
“People can check out the exhibition and check out what real homelessness looks like,” Ms Greenfield said.
“I think people have an idea of who homeless people are and what they’ve been through but often it might be linked to things like addictions – or it might be a man of a certain age.
She said in reality, homelessness was many things, many people and different age groups.
“It’s circumstantial, it’s where people find themselves in life sometimes – and often when there’s women involved it tends to include domestic and family violence,” she said.
Ms Greenfield said in one week, up to 20 people sleeping rough would visit the centre for support, with some being regulars and others seriously looking for accommodation.
“There is an absolute crisis regarding accommodation for all sorts of people,” she said.
“People can’t afford it either- the escalating prices of rentals and cost of living- it’s very very hard for people.”
In her technical process, Ms Reynolds’ main goal was trying to capture the subjects in an empowering way that focused on them as a person.
“I didn’t want to capitalise on any clichés,” she said.
“There are a few black-and-white sad images in there, but I was avoiding them.”
Out of the 20 people Ms Reynolds was able to persuade to photograph for the exhibition, she said she must have asked another 50 people.
“There was a lot of no’s,” she said.
“Most people didn’t want to be part of the show because no one wants to be the face of homelessness, just because of that stigma.
Ms Reynolds asked one question of every subject she photographed: ‘If you could tell the world one thing about yourself what would it be?’
The answers will be placed underneath the images in the exhibition.
“It was a very empowering question for people who were in the show and the questions really resonated with people that see this show too,” she said.
“But the photographs tell the stories themselves.
“It makes us all remember we are all human; we are all here together at the end of the day. It’s an exhibition that’s really touched people’s hearts.”
The popular and sought-after show was first exhibited in August 2020, and has since gained in popularity around South East Queensland – with the upcoming show set to be the fourth re-showing of the original exhibition.
Ms Reynolds said the public’s reaction who had seen the exhibition had been overwhelmingly positive and emotional, with lots of tears being shed.
Changing Perceptions on Homelessness will be held at The Maroochydore Library Art Space on Friday, September 23.
