OUTSIDERS is a documentary photo exhibit by Seattle photographer David Entrikin. Its subjects are the unfortunate people who live on the streets of Seattle –OUTSIDERS. The MISSION OF THE EXHIBIT is to powerfully bring the statistics and the news stories about Seattle homelessness to a clear and stark reality. It does this in several ways:

THE ONE NIGHT COUNT
Annually volunteers canvas the streets, parks and out-of –the-way places in Seattle counting the homeless on that one night. This year, on January 25, 2008, the volunteers counted 1976 unsheltered people in Seattle. OUTSIDERS presents these people – collected in 15 photo montages of people whose home for the night is the street, a blanket, some cardboard. There are 1500 photographs comprising this part of the exhibit.

SHELTER
Necessity has always been the mother of invention. The homeless are often clever and skilled at making temporary homes. This section of OUTSIDERS offers a collection of photos of cardboard homes – from simple boxes to more elaborate constructions – and a group of more substantial constructions, boards, tarps, pallets, tents made into shacks that may provide shelter for weeks.

PHOTO DIARIES
Several OUTSIDERS have allowed Mr. Entrikin to photograph them over a series of months or years. This section of the OUTSIDERS EXHIBIT presents some of these people in photos centered around each individual. The goal is to make each one of them real, to expose their humanity, to show their beauty, to involve them in the family of man.

PORTRAITS
If a person asks Mr. Entrikin for money “any spare change?” he instead offers them a larger amount if they will allow him to take their photograph. The room of portraits has been assembled from that collection – men, women, some folks very average and some unusual – all treated with sincere respect in close-ups of detail and beauty.

STREET LIFE
A collection of forceful photographs taken over the course of the project.

GOAL
The OUTSIDERS EXHIBIT has one goal – to bring this lost group to life – to show the misery, the loneliness and the humanity of these members of our community.