WHERE CHILDREN SLEEP

Images by: James Mollison

I recently came across a book by James Mollison entitled Where Children Sleep. It's a photo essay that chronicles the lives of children, and the conditions that they live in, around the world. Each subject’s portrait is presented against a stark white background, and is accompanied by an adjoining photograph of their bedroom. There is only a limited amount of text under the portrait of each child, and that's more than appropriate given that the photos speak volumes about each of the individual children and their circumstances.

The project was originally undertaken for a children's right's charity, and it took five year to complete. During that time, Mollison travelled around the world gathering images for this project. Mollison believed that the best way to represent the lives of these children was through images of their bedrooms. The book presents bedrooms of children living in all kinds of different socio-economic and political circumstances ... from the 5th Avenue priviledged to the Nepalese and African children that live in extreme heart-wrenching poverty.

Although the book is written for an audience between the ages of nine to thirteen, it's captivating for people of all ages because of how telling the "personal kingdom", as Mollison describes it, is of others around the world. To say that Mollison’s images evoke very strong emotions is an understatement. Individually, each photo that was selected for the book is strong, but when presented in this comparative format, they're even more powerful. It’s hard to believe that such a simple concept like this becomes a vehicle for a powerful commentary on the world, and values of those living in it today.

If you’d like to see more of Mollison’s images from his book, feel free to visit his website. If inclined, here’s the link to purchase a copy of Where Children Sleep.