At part of the Homelessness: Reframed exhibition Surfing Sofas created Spectra of Displacement – a poetic exploration of homelessness, capturing the diverse and complex experiences of those affected.
Surfing Sofas, also known as Justin Brown, is a poet whose work focuses on experiences of homelessness and social justice, and is also the poet in residence at the Museum of Homelessness.
Examples of work can be found on his SoundCloud.
Make sure to visit Homelessness: Reframed at the Saatchi Gallery before the 20th September to listen to the full Spectra of Displacement album.
Home is where the car is
Some store their clothes
Inside their boots.
With the irony of not needing
A foot or clutch to change gear.
Some lose their drive,
Once they burnout, then crash.
And some people are
Driven to insanity’s strange lair.
Steering their way through
The rugged terrain
of the rocky, racing
Roads of life.
Encased in their
Four-wheeled metal shells
Through the hottest days
And through the coldest nights.
But…
Does anyone notice
How broken they are?
Does anyone focus
To notice their scars?
No house to call home,
And nowhere to go,
They’ve been left to make some
Kind of Home from their cars.
Some have parking tickets
All over their cars.
Some have – cardboard taped on
The windows on their cars.
To block out the light of the moon
and the glow of the stars
Then they search for 40 winks,
So they can doze in the cars.
On their own in the cars,
It gets cold in their cars,
And some nights get scary,
All alone in their cars.
Hoping this won’t be forever,
But in the meantime,
They do what they can
To feel at home in their cars.
I know what it’s like to live a life
Engulfed with years of hardships
But imagine living in your cars,
Through the coldness and the darkness.
People driven to wish
For a home to get them started.
But sadly, for the time being
Home is where their car is.
