mittendrin unsichtbar – Wohnungslose Frauen in Berlin
For my bachelor project "mittendrin unsichtbar", I spent three months visiting emergency shelters for homeless women in Berlin in the hope of making these women visible. The thought of a homeless person often results in a very stigmatised image: a man with worn-out clothes living on the street. This simplified image of visible homelessness is often linked to social visual conventions and is spread and reinforced by the media, for example with portraits of those affected. Due to such a distortion of perception, many affected persons remain unnoticed: they are women who live inconspicuously in shame of their plight, to keep their homelessness hidden and to protect themselves from violence. Affected women usually seek out emergency overnight shelters to find a safe place to sleep. During the day, they are not offered this protection, as they have to leave the facilities early in the morning. In the city, they are indiscernible as homeless by their visual appearance and thus hardly exist in social perception. They are right in the middle - but invisible. Using disposable cameras, 13 homeless women document their daily lives to cast light upon their living situations and thus become visible, although they remain anonymous on request and are only know by the first letter of their first names. The result is a publication that conceptually and in its design addresses the issue of the invisibility of these women, as well as a website and an Instagram account for digital visibility. Website: www.mittendrin-unsichtbar.de | Code Paul Evans Instagram: @mittendrin_unsichtbar The search for the women involved many visits to various shelters in Berlin. I thank all the leaders for their helpful support in being able to visit the institutions several times. My special thanks go to all the women for participating in the project. I thank them for their openness, their warmth and their trust.
