Unless we’re one of them, many of us learn the habit of looking away from the down-and-out when we’re going about our daily lives. Truly seeing the homeless, the mentally ill, the drug-addicted, and others in crisis (not overlapping populations, but intersecting ones) potentially forces us to think about our role in a society that has largely abandoned them.
Meanwhile, art photography of these populations tends to force us to look, to see just how much pain and suffering there is to see on the streets.
In light of this — not looking vs. looking to see the pain — I found the photography of Chris Arnade to be a breath of fresh air. Featured at Mother Jones, his portraits of “drug abuse, sex work, and homelessness in the Bronx” are humanizing. Many of them show smiling faces, dignity, pride, and peace. I recommend going to see the Flickr set.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 19
gasstationwithoutpumps — June 16, 2012
What does "not overlapping populations, but intersecting ones" mean?
myblackfriendsays — June 16, 2012
I like these photos, they do tend to humanize the subjects. I also like the fact that the photographer asks the people how they would like to be described. However, my concern is Chris capitalizing on this project (either by selling the photos or just increasing his own visibility which leads to more paid work.) Because then he gets something tangible and powerful (money) while his subjects get bupkis. Lots of photographers take photos of homeless people and are handsomely rewarded as a result.
I know it may sound like I am ragging on this guy, but I'm not. Just raising what I see as a valid concern about something that has been going on for a long time.
portia chalifoux — June 17, 2012
"Unless we’re one of them, many of us learn the habit of looking away from the down-and-out when we’re going about our daily lives. Truly seeing the homeless, the mentally ill, the drug-addicted, ..."In the above statement, you have managed to dehumanize and diminish a wide swath of people. The homeless, the mentally ill, the drug-addicted: those are all adjectives. What are they describing? Surely not sentient, feeling people, because you prefaced those adjectives by specifying "them" as not "one of us".
Appalling in its ignorance, arrogance and "other" worldiness.
I'm obviously a lesser one of them. My comment about the photog's subjects: look at their eyes. They are deadened in every single photograph.
decius — June 17, 2012
"Truly seeing homeless people, mentally ill people, drug-addicted people, and other people in crisis"
Fixed that for you. Also of note is that the pictures are of people who abuse drugs, not drug abuse; people who are sex workers, not sex work; and homeless people, not homelessness.
Gilbert Pinfold — June 17, 2012
We have the same blasé, fatalistic attitude to homelessness as we do to crime. Abolition is not even a dream anymore... We argue about intellectual property on poverty porn shots.
john — June 18, 2012
It's kind of funny, I go to an art school in downtown Chicago, I'm one of the few people who have lived in (actual) Chicago my whole life, worked in homeless shelters a few times, learned to ignore these people on Michigan ave (if you gave a dollar to every homeless person while walking down the whole of michigan ave, you'd be out 50 bucks easily), and yes, I've seen them smile on occasion of course because they are and have always been humans, but one of the first things the teachers tend to do is criticize the freshmen who go out and take pictures of the homeless. It's obvious their "fascination" with these groups of people. I was amazed with the number of students who actually followed this trope of basing their projects around the homeless... Granted, I suppose these do "humanize" them more so than just snapping a picture of them with their cardboard sign ,but it's still hard to get around that again, it's some "photographer" documenting these people for their own portfolio. I can't shake the feeling this is still one subject that you can't get around without seeming like an ignorant outsider. Just look at some of the comments on his blog, I have seen maybe one or two "artistic works" that successfully "feature" homeless people without seeming as though the artist is misrepresenting that person, or group of people.
Letta Page — June 19, 2012
Another similar project is one featured in a past issue of Contexts, wherein we paired the photographs of San Francisco bunch-of-awesome Tom Stone (of the Tom Stone Gallery, @phantomstone on Twitter) with an article by Mark Rank called "Rethinking American Poverty." (http://contexts.org/articles/spring-2011/rethinking-american-poverty/) The photos are beautiful and can be found in a photo set on flickr called "American Outsiders" (http://www.flickr.com/photos/stoneth/sets/1562065/)
Laura Chenault — June 26, 2012
I think you should do an article about Barbara DeGenevieve: http://www.degenevieve.com/panhandler%20media.html