A photographer volunteered with outreach services to help people experiencing homelessness create their own self-portraits for a new photo exhibition.
Artist Anthony Luvera worked in the kitchens for a year at Birmingham homelessness charity SIFA Fireside to meet staff and the people they support to create CONSTRUCT. The exhibition invited people to co-create their own photos to show representation and identity among the most marginalised people in the city.
His four-year project, which started in 2018, has seen him work with over 50 people who have experienced homelessness to create 21 assisted self-portraits that will go on display in Birmingham’s Snow Hill Square from September 14.
“The way I work is socially engaged,” said Luvera, whose previous projects include photographing a vigil in memory of people who died while experiencing homelessness and chronicling local authorities’ inability to answer basic questions about homelessness.
“That is, I spend time volunteering in support services developing relationships with the people with whom I work, inviting them to develop skills, to use equipment to record their experiences and the things they are interested in, and to co-create images with me.
“Over the years, I’ve collaborated with hundreds of individuals and through this process I’ve collated thousands of photographs, video, sound recordings, and other pieces of ephemera created by participants that express their points of view, and visualise experiences of some of the most marginalised people in society.”