Artist's Statement

Cecilia Borgenstam

All images are archival pigment prints, and measure 23" on the shortest side and x 35" on the longest.

"Here/Not Here" is a documentation of abandoned homeless camps in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park (CA), a destination for a large population of transient people in one of the US' self-proclaimed sanctuary cities. The definition of “transience”, a word used to replace the term “homeless”, is “short-lived” or “a state of briefness”, but the state of transience in this context is anything but brief, and the visual topography is sadly universal.

When a person in transience move on from their temporary shelter, ordinary day to day objects are left to interact with the natural elements of the park, where the cold pacific coast fog and strong winds make their own mark on the rugged terrain. The material impermanence of these dystopian still-lives, morphing over time with the landscape, speak of long-term exposure, vulnerability, and relentless determination. They remind us of the discrepancy between our obsession with materialism and consideration for those around us. These imprints of human interactions and discarded objects serve as metaphors for the physical and tangible existence displacement.

A percentage of print sales will be donated by the artist to the Larkin Street Youth Services, an organization striving to support young homeless people in San Francisco since 1984.