Changing Minds: Challenging Stereotypes between Art and Homelessness

Abstract

This article provides an analysis of a socially engaged arts project that took place over a nine-month period between two quite different groups of people: art students who facilitated the project and homeless men who participated. Four art students volunteered to work on a socially engaged arts project and access a drop-in group which supports people who are homeless. I consider that the arts-based methods used within socially engaged practice changes the student's perceptions of homelessness. Analogue photography along with collaborative arts projects become a methodology for dialogical and creative engagement. The research is reflexive, with the art students, and a couple of the homeless men, being interviewed at the end of the project. From these reflections we gain an insight into how the creative methods change the students' stereotypical perceptions of homelessness. The surprising effect of agency that comes about through objects such as tables and cameras, the processes, artwork, and an exhibition has the power to change the relationship between the homeless men and art students. The research recognizes the relationship between volunteering and empathy and wanting to change homeless people's lives for the better.