A Gripping Look At ‘Where Children Sleep’ Around The World
Where Children Sleep uses photographer James Mollison’s images from around the globe to tell stories of children near and far and the places they call home by way of portraits and pictures of their bedrooms. Published in 2010, the book offers readers and viewers a unique and abstract glimpse into the lives of young people, the likes of which may live across the street or across the world.
“When Fabrica asked me to come up with an idea for engaging with children’s rights, I found myself thinking about my bedroom: how significant it was during my childhood, and how it reflected what I had and who I was,” Mollison says on his Web site.
Photographed over the course of two years, Where Children Sleep was created with support from Save The Children in Italy. It introduces readers to children from all walks of life and reveals all manner of sleeping arrangements: big rooms and small rooms, plush beds and stone steps, beds without rooms, rooms without beds and homes with no roof.
“It occurred to me that a way to address some of the complex situations and social issues affecting children would be to look at the bedrooms of children in all kinds of different circumstances. From the start, I didn’t want it just to be about ‘needy children’ in the developing world, but rather something more inclusive, about children from all types of situations,” Mollison explains.
While the book has an audience between 9 and 13 years of age in mind, the concept and message are such that people of any age can take away a valuable lesson.
