When I first moved to London I broke up with my girlfriend, and, for a period, I technically became homeless. I couldn’t get a room in shared accommodation and I ended up couch surfing. It was incredibly unsettling but it showed me that anyone can be in this situation. Recently I walked through Covent Garden and saw a woman of about 70 or 80. She was an archetype of a granny; grey perm, floral blouse, but she was getting into a cardboard box. A man was leaving her food from a nearby restaurant.
I felt morally conflicted about taking these photos and sharing them. I asked myself, “What is the purpose of this? Who benefits?” I questioned the reason behind doing this because I was so conflicted about the issue. I thought about Nigel Shafran’s series of photographs that tried to invert the power dynamic, by having homeless people photograph him. This helped me understand what needed to be considered when I was making the work.
“When we see [homeless people], it throws us back on our own privilege,” David told journalist Poppy Noor an the article in“Even if we’re not some fancy person living in some fancy flat in London, the fact is, we’re not on the street. And rather than be compassionate, we become judgmental, because compassion is a price that most of us aren’t willing to pay.
Then you have the huge cuts to mental health care, social housing and almost everything else that began in 2010. Combined with the introduction of Universal Credit, which has been hugely problematic for the welfare system, along with massive rent increases and the decimation of social housing, and we’re in a nightmarish situation. The charity sector – which is itself struggling – is operating on the front lines of this epidemic. It’s the perfect storm.
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