Art exhibition shines light on emotions experienced by homeless

A powerful art exhibition which reveals the emotions experienced by homeless people in the Royal Borough has gone in display at Maidenhead Library.

Over the past few years, art sessions have been taking place at the Windsor Homeless Project to give service users a chance to express their creative talents.

The initiative, run by the Happy Bunny Project, has focused on the topic of social anxiety and the different emotions which homeless people feel.

The end result is an art installation named ‘Who Lives Here?’ which features a large cardboard house with a number of windows revealing emotions such as guilt, depression and panic.

Project organiser Ieva Poriete said: “It all started with a simple idea to see if creative intervention would help people feel better or feel more included.

“We started just after COVID and it's been two years of consistently turning up and engaging with guests who attend Windsor Homeless Project.”

She added: “It was mainly my idea to find how to exhibit the work and talk about homelessness and social anxiety. “The initial idea was that the house is pretty from the outside but as you walk closer you see all these monsters living inside.

“We’ve had many people visit the exhibition who have either been close to homelessness or are not homeless at all but they can relate to all the emotions.

“Most of these emotions you don’t talk about. People just want you to just be happy and get on with life.”

The exhibition featured at the Windsor Fringe Festival back in September and has now been moved to Maidenhead Library to encourage conversations over homelessness.

Ieva, who runs a dressmaking company based at Theatre Royal Windsor, said she hoped the project had demonstrated the positive impact creative expression can have on people’s mental wellbeing.

The exhibition coincides with a pivotal moment in the Windsor Homeless Project’s history as the charity prepares to move into a new community hub called the Alma Beacon in Alma Road, Windsor.