An Ordinary Eden contemplates the universal need to belong, lay roots, and be connected to people and place.

To be without a permanent home is both a tangible and an emotional experience, where the necessity for safety and security accompanies a need to belong. In An Ordinary Eden, individuals across Scotland offer an insight into both practical and psychosocial repercussions of transient and precarious experiences of ‘home’.

All the people photographed had different stories on housing and home. All have been homeless at some point; some still were throughout the project. And all had different paths that brought them to their present, with histories that were multi-layered, complex, and nuanced. In each person resides a story of rebuilding and redemption, of leaving a past to forge a new future. Alongside this lies the acknowledgment of the impact their experiences have left on them as they seek to create roots and belong once more.

Each individual’s idea of ‘home’ is not a wish for a future idealised scenario, an unattainable fantasy. Rather, it is the ordinary, the everyday that is sought: safety, security, stability. This work is rooted in an appeal to our basic humanity, our compassion. That the impact of being without a home – in all the ways that can happen – is understood not only in an immediate practical manner but also on an emotional level. The need to belong and have meaningful connections with others. We should all be able to do that in a society that cares, in a society that works for all. 

This is not a search for utopia, an unreachable fantasy. It is the simple wish for a regular life. A pursuit for each individual’s Ordinary Eden.

“Where do I want to go? Somewhere slightly better than here”