All those difficult questions you have ever wanted to ask about life on the streets will be answered this weekend at the world’s first international homelessness arts festival in Manchester.
Running until November 18, One Voice’s free International Art and Homeless Summit and Festival aims to offer a new perspective on homelessness.
Among the pieces on show at Whitworth Art Gallery tomorrow will be Are You Sitting Comfortably? – an interactive art piece involving two armchairs. One is the chair of Ethel Briggs – an elderly woman who died in her daughter’s arms in January – representing home while the other is a chair upholstered by Pete, a man with lived experience of homelessness.
Artist Emma Turner’s vision is for the public to sit in Pete’s chair to quiz people sitting in the other chair on homelessness.
Sitting in the other chair will be Denise Harrison, a formerly homeless woman who has beaten alcoholism and got her life on track, chronicling the tale in her JustAGirl17x online blog. The conversations in the chairs will be filmed to form a video art installation while there also plans to take the project on tour.