The Working Homeless (2011)

The Working Homeless is a combination of six-channel video installation, a panel discussion, and a TV report and media intervention. It consists of interviews with panhandlers who "fly signs" on the I-35 ramps. The project considers panhandling as a form of labor, with wages approximating the minimum wage. It in turn investigates the social, psychological, and economic facets of homelessness. Formally, the video installation consists of six channels set in two rows, as though the space in between were a road. Projectors set on milk crates project video interviews, and sounds of traffic can periodically drown out these interviews. In order that the viewer might catch the entire message, a transcription of each interview is projected onto cardboard signs beneath the project image.