Home Is Where the Heart Is:
living in the streets of L.A.
interactive google map / Photography, video, TExt
2018
“T” and “C”, though both only 28 years old in 2018, had already spent life as a couple on the streets of Los Angeles for over two decades. In Home Is Where the Heart Is, their experiences of homelessness—as well as the resulting disenfranchisement, determination, and close-knit community—are told through their own words through a series of interviews displayed across an online map of the city.
Interactive map demonstration
GORDON HOUSE
Archival inkjet print
T became addicted to methamphetamine as an 11-year-old runaway. She developed epilepsy and had seizures on a regular basis as a result. By the time she and C got together seven years later, T was ready to quit, her decision sealed by C’s ultimatum: “It’s either me or the drugs.” Meth bonds itself to fat cells so it can take a long time to completely leave one’s system. T quit meth cold turkey on the streets of Hollywood with C by her side. Suffering drastic weight fluctuations, extreme fatigue, and sensations of getting high, it took T two years fully recover.
“The drugs made me feel safe, know what I mean? But then C made me feel safe, made me feel about myself the way I did before the drugs.”
CINERAMA
Archival inkjet print
“The first time C ever spent the night in the streets, I took her here ‘cause it was a enclosed place.”
“We slept on the stairs.
“You prefer to sleep on the stairs than on the floor?”
“It’s more of a security thing ‘cause you get comfortable, anything can happen. You don’t wanna get comfortable sleeping on the streets.”
BLUE HOLLYWOOD
Archival inkjet print
“Even though out here in Hollywood, we all antagonize each other, we stick up for each other regardless. Like, I may not know the homeless person that’s sleeping at the corner but I know that for sure that if somebody come fucking with me that dude’s got my back.”
BY THE WATER
Archival inkjet print
“I’m at peace when I’m out here. It’s like, nothing more to think about. Everything’s so calming.”
Exhibition photos by John Florance
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When I approached T and C about this project, I had already spent a few years reflecting on the issue of homelessness through photography. I’ve often received encouragement from peers for shedding light on this critical social issue but I always had a nagging feeling about the imbalance between the power of my gaze and their state of disempowerment (whether real or perceived) whenever I took pictures of people experiencing life in the streets. The common response of other photographers to my uncertainty is, “If your intention is to tell authentic, empathetic stories, it’s ok.” I appreciated the pat on the back but I couldn’t put my trust solely in my intentions—which, among other things, are separate from the final output and its effect—to guide me through the murky waters of gaze and representation. Who has the power to see and to tell? Who has the authority to correct when narratives become altered, distorted, and appropriated, even with the best of intentions? As I dove into these questions, I began to see a proliferation of images by well-intentioned street photographers that were cinematic and arresting but that also sensationalized and even fetishized the homelessness experience. This was what my nagging sensation was warning me against.
T and C were understandably hesitant to participate in this project. To have an outsider capture your experiences is unnerving to say the least, especially regarding stigmatized issues such as mental health, homelessness, poverty, and substance use. Nevertheless, the three of us cautiously transitioned into a collaborative rhythm and we navigated the subtleties of power and power shifts: the power of possession (my car, my camera, my grant money), the power of experience and knowledge, the power to ask, to listen, to take, to receive, the power to say no. Our process also taught me how to better observe and contextualize a story not my own in an intimate yet respectful way. However, the dilemma of gaze, representation, and intention is one without a routine solution for me and will necessitate the ongoing discipline of scrutiny and examination.
T and C’s journey along the streets of Los Angeles covers the width and breadth of human experience: time, space, love, loss, joy, pain, and all the in-betweens. I made no attempt to capture it and I released T and C from a linear narrative structure as much as possible. This approach may make their story a challenge to absorb but it is a more genuine reflection of the lived experience and its scope.
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LSH Collaboration Laboratory
Los Angeles, CA
June 15 - July 6, 2018Exhale Unlimited
Los Angeles, CA
October 20 - 21, 2018
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Mental Health & Wellbeing Grant, Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health and California Mental Health Services Authority (2018)