Why Aren’t We There Yet? was born out of a personal desire to get to know my unhoused neighbors. While I had met several people through creating illuminated tent installations at the Seabreeze and Shellmound camps on I-80 in Berkeley, I had not had the opportunity to spend as much time getting to know each individual as I would have liked. The project of creating installations naturally evolved into asking questions, recording and filming people speaking, and finally, getting individuals behind the shadow screen. This first began as a way to improvise shadow theater together, but quickly evolved into giving each individual an opportunity to express their own ideas of who they are.
I feel the shadow screen is an interesting device to use as a part of creating portraits of individuals. For one, it removes a lot of information which we normally use to judge a person. For another, it creates a wall of safety behind which individuals may find themselves opening up through gesture or words to express aspects of themselves. Setting up the shadow screen in places where people either were currently living or had lived in the past brought in the element of the context in which these individuals were/are experiencing homelessness. I am personally inspired by how each individual responds to and utilizes their environment to survive and even thrive when most are living in what could generally be considered difficult, unstable conditions.
It is my hope that the media gathered in this project – text, video and still photos – can be used in a variety of ways all with the aim of making visible the wisdom and humanity of these individuals. In May 2021 a large video projection installation was in a large empty storefront at 2200 Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley to showcase the portraits of nine individuals living at the Shellmound camp off the Ashby/Shellmound interchange at 1-80 Eastbound. The intention to use a storefront location for the installation was to give as much space (and thus real estate) to the voices, wisdom and talents of these individuals as possible, so that they could be heard by the public and ideally take their rightful place in the discourse on housing rights and activism for the unhoused in California.
This project received a grant from the City of Berkeley Civic Arts Program.