'Summer visiting her mum’, 2021
Each portrait in the latest series by Margaret Mitchell tells a story of how it feels to live without stability and security.
From a schoolgirl visiting her mum to a 31-year-old man gazing out the window of his first ever home, each has experienced the devastating impact of homelessness. They all come together in a compassionate and intelligent exhibition, An Ordinary Eden, showing at Street Level Photoworks in Mitchell’s home city of Glasgow.
An award-winning photographer whose work explores identity, place and belonging, Mitchell is known for her moving photo essays that shed light on often forgotten parts of society. She was first noticed shortly after graduating in 1994 for her series Family, which documents her sister’s children at home in a Stirling housing estate. Revisiting them two decades later, the sequel showed their own children again growing up in an area affected by deprivation.
According to the charity Crisis, around 227,000 households across Britain were experiencing the worst forms of homelessness by the end of 2021. An Ordinary Eden shows the lives behind the statistics, bringing them into sharp focus in beautifully shot portraiture and documentary photography. It raises questions about how society responds to those with precarious existences and if current systems are working. Here, Mitchell discusses her reasons for embarking on this deeply personal project.
What inspired An Ordinary Eden?
I’m interested in the interaction between person and place – how environment affects our internal lives, our minds. Much of my work concerns ideas about place and belonging, bridging social and psychological issues. An Ordinary Eden came from those interests including previous work on inequalities where the significance of place and connection was woven throughout. Within my work, one image or project often stimulates another in terms of ideas.
How did you choose your subjects – and gain their confidence?
For An Ordinary Eden I was interested in practical and emotional dimensions of not having permanent housing. What is the importance of home, how does a period of homelessness impact a person and how do current systems respond?
I initially worked with people with lived experience of homelessness through Shelter Scotland. I met others through word of mouth, introductions, occasionally serendipitous meetings. Some people engaged with me over a long period of time, others shorter. The project started just before the pandemic, so contact was maintained through email, messaging and WhatsApp. I am always clear about how and where my work will be viewed. I share past work, discuss my reasons for doing the project, explain where it might go and how it might be seen.
People came from a range of experiences, from those in temporary accommodation, to others now in a more stable place but who could reflect on it from distance and evaluate the experience. I wanted as many diverse voices as possible. All the people photographed had different stories. All had been homeless at some point with histories that were multi-layered, complex and nuanced. It became clear early in the project people did not want a utopia but rather the ordinary – a simple wish for a regular life. Safety, stability, a place to belong.
Have you or someone close to you experienced homelessness?
In This Place has a portrait of my nephew Steven in his temporary accommodation as part of that project. I’ve also had short periods of housing instability when I was a young adult. Since the exhibition opened, I’ve had a good number of people tell me about their own histories. These stories are everywhere and so much is hidden, ignored, judged.
How did you choose the backdrops to your portraits?
For me, photographing a person is about engaging, listening and observing, which then defines how I photograph. Apart from single portraits, photographing someone is often part of a process of building a relationship with them. Sometimes those are ongoing, and some are more fleeting, more concentrated. Some people I meet beforehand, some we chat on the phone or by messaging, some I visit at home and photograph that same day. I am responding to individual situations each time.
In An Ordinary Eden I would sometimes be visiting a hostel on the outskirts of the city, or someone’s home they had just moved into after being homeless for 16 years. The images are made from what I walk into. I might choose a location I think reflects a particular aspect of their story, or wait for light. They are documentary portraits of a person in their environment made in a fairly organic way.
What impact would you like An Ordinary Eden to have?
I hope it can offer an insight into other lives, into the systems in society, and offer a way to reflect if what we have at present treats people with care, compassion and dignity. To question if those in power and the systems that exist are lacking.
To not have a home happens for many reasons and at the end of the four years working on the project, with all the multiple experiences people shared, how those in power respond remained in my mind. What was clear was the amount of time people were in these situations – needless years lost because support was not adequate.
What achievements are you most proud of?
Achievement for me comes in a few ways. It comes from meeting and photographing people, being allowed into their lives whether briefly or long-term. From taking my ideas and formulating that into work I can then share with a wider audience – one which might not necessarily have access to those experiences and can be informed in some way of the lives of others.
Recently, I finished a project with people at end-of-life and the trust they put in me, allowing me to be part of their lives when time was so limited, was an incredible privilege. In An Ordinary Eden, many of people I’d photographed for the project attended the exhibition opening or visited afterwards. To see them there and know the journeys that have brought them to this point, well, that’s the important part.
All images from the series An Ordinary Eden by Margaret Mitchell.
Left, top to bottom: Untitled, from the series An Ordinary Eden; ‘Graeme’s living room wall, 2021’; ‘Marcus, 31, in his first ever home at Christmas, 2020’; ‘Najib out the back of his temporary accommodation, 2022’; ‘Ryan in his living room, 2021’; 'Graeme in his living room, 2020’.
Right, top to bottom: ‘Daniel close to his homeless hostel, 2020’; ‘Lyndsey, 2019’; ‘Michael in temporary homeless accommodation, 2020’; ‘Name withheld, 2022’; ‘Andrew in the stairwell, 2020’; 'Mark, 2021’.
An Ordinary Eden by Margaret Mitchell is at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow, until 16 July 2023.
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Listen to Margaret Mitchell speak on Vimeo about her exhibition An Ordinary Eden.