Jim Lommasson
Portland, Oregon
What I Carry: A collaborative photo+writing storytelling project with Portland’s Street Community.
I photograph significant personal items, practical or sentimental, that unhoused members of our community carry with them as they navigate life in the city. I then return a 13”x19” archival print to the participant and invite them to write or create art directly on the photo expressing why their object holds such importance. Through this process of personal storytelling with objects+photographs+the participants’ handwriting gives voice to the those who are rarely heard.
I believe in the power of art.
Since 2010, I have dedicated my work to collaborative projects with communities displaced from their homes and their homelands.
These projects encompass the stories of refugees, genocide, and Holocaust survivors who bear the burdens of the diaspora. My “What We Carried” projects examine themes of departure and the enduring impact it leaves behind.
Each project deepens my connection with the communities with whom I collaborate. What I Carry focuses on Portland’s unhoused community.
These photo/writings serve as powerful reminders that any of us could find ourselves in need of shelter, should only a few circumstances in our lives shift.
Through this process of personal storytelling with object/photographs with the participants’ handwriting, I aspire to give voice to the those who are rarely heard, and to illuminate the resilience and humanity behind each object - and the person carrying it.
This project, working alongside the unsheltered members of our community, asson strives to remind us of our shared humanity and to remind us that we are all one family.
It’s been said that my What We Carried projects “humanize” the refugees who come to our country, but it’s not the refugee (or the homeless person) that needs to be humanized,
...it is us.
- Jim Lommasson
