Exhibit with Conscience Puts 'Human' into 'Homeless'

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

FEATURES - ACCENT & ARTS 08B

By Nancy Gilson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The day before ''Cricket'' was to attend the opening of a photography show -- in which he is a subject -- he was arrested for holding up a ''homeless'' sign and asking for money. '

'We had planned to pick him up and take him to the show, but that didn't happen,'' said Thomas Dick, one of the creators of ''indifference'' at Ohio Dominican University.

''I guess you can still hold out a cup for change but you can't fly a sign.''

Cricket, who is homeless, may yet get to see the modest-size exhibit, a project by two 20-somethings who mix social activism with art.

''He's out of jail now,'' Dick said, ''and we're going to get him and some of the others up to Ohio Dominican to see their photographs.''

Neither Dick, 23, nor Bryan Hunter, 27, attends Ohio Dominican University.

Thomas Dick and Bryan Hunter

Hunter graduated from Ohio State University, and Dick will at the end of fall quarter. They became acquainted in class. ''We started talking about photography and the idea of the homeless,'' Dick said. ''We thought everyone had a myth about the homeless, that they weren't really homeless, didn't need the money and were putting on a scam.''

His family was friends with Ronald Carstens, a professor in political philosophy at Ohio Dominican. Carstens tutored Dick in philosophy. In the process, he learned of Dick's interest in photography and the issue of homelessness.

"When I saw some of his work, I thought it would be good enough for a show,'' he said. Carstens suggested the exhibit to Janette Knowles, director of Wehrle Gallery and chairwoman of the Department of Fine Art and Communication. The exhibit opened Aug. 31.

The young men had taken their cameras Downtown.

"We followed along the train tracks behind where the old homeless shelter was on Broad Street, and we shot a lot at the camps near Whittier by the old Lazarus annex,'' Dick said.

They also spent time not shooting. "We'd be out there for hours and only get five or six shots,'' Dick said. "We ended up just talking to people more than anything.''

They couldn't help seeing need.

"Tom would call his parents and say, 'We need some blankets down here,' '' Knowles said.

Through his parents' church, the Church of Christ in Christian Union in Peebles, Dick helped organize a youth-group drive that took food and clothing to some of the people.

"We developed some pretty close relationships with a few,'' Dick said. "I learned a lot.''

For instance, he said, Cricket was reserved at first but gradually revealed that the worst part of being homeless was not the lack of food and shelter but the absence of "living a life.''

"He said that now he was an outsider, watching others live the life he once knew,'' Dick said.

The photographers, Knowles said, practiced "what we call 'action research.' '' They began to do things that made lives a little better.

"This exhibit is probably less about art and more about social justice. It's an exhibition that does the right thing.''

Included in "indifference'' are fewer than 40 color photographs, all unframed and relatively small.

Hank 2 shows a man who regularly stands on High Street and is familiar to Downtown workers. Raymond portrays a Vietnam War veteran who carries a sign that says he suffers Lou Gehrig's disease. His Bed shows a man lying on one of the concrete benches at OSU, his bare back to the camera, his hair scraggly, his socks dirty. He wears no shoes.The photographs also capture inanimate objects such as pickle barrels used for washing clothes.

Interspersed between the photographs are quotations from the likes of Edwin Markham and Henry Ward Beecher. One is from George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London: "People seem to feel there is some essential difference between beggars and ordinary 'working' men. . . . Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this test, beggars fail, and for that, they are despised.''

"The combination of images and words makes a statement about homelessness and its existence in the United States,'' Carstens said. "Tom and Bryan didn't want to make these people into objects, which is what homelessness is about. They're essentially objects that society has thrown away.''

Knowles said that the exhibit coordinates with Ohio Dominican's "Life of the Mind'' lecture series devoted to social justice. Carstens said the works have been used as a teaching exhibit, dealing with the history of the photo essay in social sciences and the arts.

He said he has talked to Dick about publishing the works.

"It's a small exhibit, but it's purposeful,'' Carstens said. "A few of the images stand on their own, but the majority need one another. It's an essay.''

The young men plan to continue their relationships with their subjects and to continue to shoot photos.

"It's an ongoing project, a work in progress,'' Dick said -- referring, perhaps, to his photographs, the assistance he offers his subjects or just homelessness.


Reprinted with permission from the Columbus Dispatch, 2003 ©.