Hosted at London’s iconic Saatchi Gallery, and curated in partnership between Prince William’s Homewards programme, Eleven Eleven Foundation and Saatchi Gallery, Homelessness: Reframed is a groundbreaking exhibition utilising the power of art to help improve the nation’s understanding of homelessness and inspire optimism that it can be ended.
‘Homelessness: Reframed’ opens at Saatchi Gallery on Wednesday 7th August and runs until Friday 20th September.
Featuring works from renowned artists such as Marc Quinn, Rankin, Philip Colbert, and Simone Brewster, alongside graffiti artist Opake, spoken word poet Surfing Sofas, mixed media artist Robi Walters, and more, this exhibition offers a powerful platform for those directly affected by homelessness to share their stories through art.
The exhibition brings to life the breadth and complexities of homelessness across the country and gives the public an opportunity to engage with, and better understand, the stories of those with experience of homelessness. The exhibition will also include pieces created by children and young people at a series of creative workshops held across the six flagship Homewards locations: Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, Lambeth in London, Newport, Northern Irelands, Sheffield.
Invisible words
Invisible Words, curated by Wendy Abrams, co-founder and CEO of Eleven Eleven Foundation, features a poignant collection of signs created by people experiencing homelessness worldwide. These signs, often overlooked in daily life, capture a range of emotions from shame and desperation to humour and resilience, encouraging viewers to reconsider their perceptions.
Reframed
In Reframed, artists were invited to create works reflecting their own or others’ experiences of homelessness. Artwork examples include: Marc Quinn’s Labyrinth Painting, which uses Lorna Tucker’s fingerprint on an oval canvas to explore human identity and societal connections; Tucker, a writer and director, experienced homelessness over many years.
Open doors
The final section, Open Doors, showcases artwork created by children and young people from the six Homewards locations. These pieces, developed in collaboration with local artists, symbolise the diverse paths to ending homelessness and highlight stories of hope and resilience. The doors serve as metaphors for the opportunities and challenges faced by those experiencing homelessness, emphasising the importance of community and support. To create the doors, a series of art workshops were held across Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, Lambeth, Newport, Northern Ireland, and Sheffield, to engage and educate children and young people on the topic of homelessness.
The series
Through a series of raw and honest conversations, Homewards has created a content series for social media, demonstrating what real conversations about homelessness look like and how we, as a society, can open the door to better understanding what it means to not have a safe and stable home. Featuring artists from Homelessness: Reframed the episodes also discuss the role of creativity in helping people to recover from homelessness and the inspiration behind the artworks they have created.
Watch the full series