A friend sent through a link to this amazing James Mollison project, Where Children Sleep. It is a series of portraits of children around the world and pictures of their bedrooms. It is amazing to look at the different environments children live in, and at times very confronting. Here is how Mollison describes the project - but you should all totally check it out:
Where Children Sleep- stories of diverse children around the world, told through portraits and pictures of their bedrooms. When Fabrica asked me to come up with an idea for engaging with children's rights, I found myself thinking about my bedroom: how significant it was during my childhood, and how it reflected what I had and who I was. It occurred to me that a way to address some of the complex situations and social issues affecting children would be to look at the bedrooms of children in all kinds of different circumstances. From the start, I didn't want it just to be about 'needy children' in the developing world, but rather something more inclusive, about children from all types of situations. It seemed to make sense to photograph the children themselves, too, but separately from their bedrooms, using a neutral background. My thinking was that the bedroom pictures would be inscribed with the children's material and cultural circumstances ' the details that inevitably mark people apart from each other ' while the children themselves would appear in the set of portraits as individuals, as equals ' just as children.
My room growing up? I remember it being small but cluttered. A big window with lace curtains (and a sneaky spot for me to let the cat in every now and then). There was a pelmet which sat above the big window, and it doubled as a spot to keep my stuffed toys. Lots of stuffed toys. The walls of my room were covered with Holly Hobby wallpaper, and there was a shelf with books and toy things. Sometimes I'd pretend my room was a shop and the shelf was stuff to sell. Sometimes I'd sit on the floor and design my dream house. Sometimes I'd cry in that room, and sometimes I was scared - but mostly, mostly I'd say I was happy.
Where Children Sleep- stories of diverse children around the world, told through portraits and pictures of their bedrooms. When Fabrica asked me to come up with an idea for engaging with children's rights, I found myself thinking about my bedroom: how significant it was during my childhood, and how it reflected what I had and who I was. It occurred to me that a way to address some of the complex situations and social issues affecting children would be to look at the bedrooms of children in all kinds of different circumstances. From the start, I didn't want it just to be about 'needy children' in the developing world, but rather something more inclusive, about children from all types of situations. It seemed to make sense to photograph the children themselves, too, but separately from their bedrooms, using a neutral background. My thinking was that the bedroom pictures would be inscribed with the children's material and cultural circumstances ' the details that inevitably mark people apart from each other ' while the children themselves would appear in the set of portraits as individuals, as equals ' just as children.
My room growing up? I remember it being small but cluttered. A big window with lace curtains (and a sneaky spot for me to let the cat in every now and then). There was a pelmet which sat above the big window, and it doubled as a spot to keep my stuffed toys. Lots of stuffed toys. The walls of my room were covered with Holly Hobby wallpaper, and there was a shelf with books and toy things. Sometimes I'd pretend my room was a shop and the shelf was stuff to sell. Sometimes I'd sit on the floor and design my dream house. Sometimes I'd cry in that room, and sometimes I was scared - but mostly, mostly I'd say I was happy.
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