Outsiders on display
By Adam Hyla, Editor
Muckraking journalist and photographer Jacob Riis documented slum conditions in his adopted city, New York, around the turn of the last century. David Entrikin is aiming for something similar in depicting the habitats and people of the 2,000 people who sleep outside each night locally.
The Seattle photographer has broken through some of the voyeurism that accompanies photo essays on “the homeless” to take sensitive portraits of people who have asked him for money and other people he’s met on the streets since 2005.
“It is a humbling experience to spend so much time among good people in unfortunate circumstances,” he says in his artists’ statement at outsidersexhibit.net. “They are lonely, sick, broke, confused, afraid and know that they are often not wanted but nevertheless show great perseverance, hope, love and fortitude.
Entrikin’s show opens at 5 p.m. Fri., Sept. 12 at the Upstairs Gallery in Ballard and closes Nov. 14, and afterwards will be available for viewing as a traveling show.
