Poverty in San Francisco is no secret, homeless people can be seen almost everywhere in the US metropolis.
The city has long since gotten used to them.
And yet it shook Jana Sophia Nolle on her first visit.
How much can a society get used to the misery on its doorstep?
The German artist has been dealing with this question ever since, for a good seven years now.
Inequality and homelessness are also urgent problems in Germany.
Only a few days ago, the federal government presented an official “homeless report” for the first time.
Result: At least 263,000 people in this country have no permanent home - more than live in cities like Freiburg, Aachen or Chemnitz.
However, not everyone who is homeless is also homeless.
Many of those affected live in emergency shelters or with friends and acquaintances.
Others move from the streets to dormitory camps and back again.
About 37,000 people, it is estimated, live permanently outdoors, even now in winter.
What do we know about them?
And how closely do we allow their reality into our everyday lives?
Jana Sophia Nolle has dealt with this question artistically.
"Just depicting reality," she says, "was too clumsy for me.
I wanted to show more than just the need.«
Even in San Francisco, she was fascinated by the variety of housing for many homeless people.
With the consent of the residents, Nolle decided to recreate some of them in middle-class living rooms to show the contrast.
She bought many of the materials so as not to take the roof over the heads of those in need.
People consciously borrowed other things from her in order to make their own destiny more visible.
It quickly became apparent that convincing well-to-do people to take part in a photo project is often more difficult than people living in absolute need.
Many took a long time to be asked, asked for tea and asked again exactly: why should we of all people deal with it?
Of course, shame connects both groups – just very differently.
The haves and have-nots share the need to be able to withdraw, to maintain privacy, not to have to declare themselves publicly.
However, it is much easier to enforce this with money and status.
For the past two years, Nolle has continued the project in Berlin.
DER SPIEGEL is showing these pictures here for the first time.
They show stylishly decorated old buildings and shrill, glowing tarpaulins and foils.
Not everything that homeless people use for their accommodation is just functional.
But on the contrary.
In some pictures, the sleeping quarters seem more personally decorated than the space around them.
There is the teddy bear that two Polish homeless people showed the photographer.
Both lived only a few months on the street, in the past they were construction workers.
“The bear,” says Nolle, “was her protector.
He comforted them and reminded those passing by that there are two people living here with needs and feelings.
Through him they received attention, but also understanding, sometimes a little help.«
Another man lived under a leaf-shaped green cloth canopy that was once the canopy of a cot in another family.
The 50-year-old is a trained ballet dancer.
In his distress, he also began to set things up a little more comfortably and kept changing his decorations.
It was important to the homeless man to still have something that served no direct purpose.
“A lot of people think it's all random,” says Nolle.
»But we often overlook how different these people and their stories are.«
It is not uncommon, reports the photographer, for items of furniture to be exchanged.
In both San Francisco and Berlin there are real flea markets where homeless people support each other and trade a wide variety of things with each other, even without money.
In the beginning, Jana Sophia Nolle also photographed the people she met.
She portrayed Memphys, the queer sex worker who made it through the streets of San Francisco.
Even in the misery of his mattress camp he displayed pride and elegance.
A reference to his old life in the cultural scene.
On a small piece of paper he described to the artist how he interpreted his everyday life.
He confidently named the tent he slept in the Doll House.
Enlarge image
Sex worker Memphys: Full of pride in misery
Photo: Jana Sophia Nolle
But not everyone involved could and wanted to show themselves that way.
In the meantime, Nolle has focused on the pictures of the replica accommodations.
There is enough to see on it.
The result is hidden object pictures of a divided society.
Here the carefully arranged living rooms, showcase places of the established bourgeoisie.
And then, right in the middle and much smaller: the places that are a whole home for other people.
The hosts often asked whose tent was being erected there.
Conversely, there was also curious interest: where did they get the money from?
But almost nobody, says Nolle after several years, was interested in meeting the other person.
Enlarge image
Notes by Memphys of San Francisco
Photo: Jana Sophia Nolle
Even when the paintings were exhibited, the inequality continued.
In San Francisco, the artist successfully invited both sides to the vernissage.
Suddenly complete strangers met in front of a picture that showed their respective homes.
There were special conversations, interested and yet shy, also insecure.
In Berlin, however, a similar attempt failed shortly afterwards.
The day before, Nolle had visited the protagonists on foot and invited them to present their stories.
In the end, however, only those who showed their living room came.
Even the location of the gallery has apparently deterred many homeless people, only the benevolent gesture could not suddenly overcome the reservations.
»What should we do there?« a homeless person asked her, the photographer remembers.
“My life is still not in a living room.
It's out here."
This contribution is part of the Global Society project
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