"Hunger Through My Lens" is a project working to promote awareness about the changing face of hunger in Colorado. Sponsored by Hunger Free Colorado, the non-profit gives digital cameras to SNAP participants and asks them to take pictures of how hunger manifests itself throughout their daily lives. The traveling exhibit features a diverse collection of photographs from fifteen women. Contrary to what founder of Hunger Free Colorado, Kathy Underhill, phrases the "American archetype of hunger" (Brooks 2014), none of the images depict a homeless man on the side of the road and none are particularly reminiscent of the starving children depicted on the sides of UNICEF donation cans. Rather ,the still frames are pictures of broken forks, a grocery bill, license pictures, a waiting sign. They communicate, among other things, something that is often muted in discussions about food stamp recipients: the human element. SNAP recipient and family practitioner Robin Dickinson captures this human element, telling Mary Jo Brooks, “It has nothing to do with your education. It has nothing to do with how good a person you are or how hard you work. It has everything to do with your financial situation. And our financial situation was really bad." (Brooks2014)
Dickinson's sentiment is one shared by all of the women. Caroline Pooler, another member of the traveling exhibit, went on food stamps after realizing her trips to community cafes and food kitchens weren't enough to sustain her. Pooler is currently in dental assistant school and sells her art to generate income. Through her experiences she realized,
" Any one of your fellow peers, colleagues or fellow parishioners may be hungry, but you don’t know that about them, because people don’t want to advertise that about themselves. There’s lots of people out there who do not have enough to eat until next payday. There’s a lot of working people who give their last five bucks to their kid for lunch and they go without. And so that’s kind of a different face of hunger than people are thinking of hunger" (Brooks 2014).
The women’s photographs and personal stories resonate with the efforts of Project Bread. Their abstract images amplify what Project Bread adamantly works to promote. And that is that hunger is multifaceted. It exists among us all in different forms. In a rapidly changing and volatile economy, maybe it exists among your waitress at Bertucci's, maybe among a young mother you know, an elderly neighbor, and yes, likely amongst a homeless man on the street. To watch the report for yourself, you can click this link: PBS Newshour.
Works Referenced: Brooks, Mary Jo. Hunger Through My Lens. PBS Newshour, 2014. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
-Samantha Bennett
Works Referenced: Brooks, Mary Jo. Hunger Through My Lens. PBS Newshour, 2014. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
-Samantha Bennett