FOCUS: Facing Our Communities Unseen Struggles

Publication Date

2025

Presentation Length

15 minutes

College

Watkins College of Art

Department

Honors Program

Student Level

Undergraduate

SPARK Category

Art

Faculty Advisor

Christine Rogers

WELL Core Type

Cultural Wellness

SPARK Session

I've been told by my faculty advisor, Christine Rogers that our time has been determined by Katie Mitchell and we will hear from her shortly when this time will be. We need 10 minutes for presenting and 5 for Q+A.

Presentation Type

Talk/Oral

Summary

Our Honors Prep and Planning cohort, desiring to bring more awareness to the unhoused population in Nashville, is partnering with Nashville’s unhoused community to create a collaborative storytelling project that allows individuals to document and share their lives. Our project will engage the unhoused by inviting participants to capture daily moments through photography with provided film cameras. We desire to exhibit both the highs and the lows and offer an authentic view of their experiences. Working alongside organizations like Daybreak Arts, members of our cohort will collaborate with those experiencing homelessness to produce photos that help the Nashville community engage with their stories. Beyond photography, we encourage expression and collaboration through various forms of media, including art, poetry, songwriting, and writing. Instead of telling people about the lives of those who are unhoused and what they can do to help, we think it would be more impactful to this population to tell their own story and for us to see the world through their lens. This project seeks to shift public perception of Nashville’s homeless community, fostering relationships between the unhoused and the housed and bringing awareness to the injustices of those in insecure housing situations. We aim to humanize and destigmatize the housing-insecure population in Nashville, spurring change, highlighting dignity, and encouraging Nashville to view homelessness through a lens of dignity and inclusion. The project will culminate in an exhibit, sharing their experiences and perspectives with the wider Nashville community. By showing how government policies and social issues impact their daily lives, the goal is to help people in Nashville understand the experiences of homelessness better. In addition to photographs, the exhibit may include recorded interviews or written stories to give a fuller picture of what it’s like to live in these situations. Through this project, we hope to start conversations about ways the community can support positive changes for those facing housing insecurity.

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