Photographer Jana Sophia Nolle takes a new, collaborative and empathetic approach to photographing and working with San Francisco’s houseless population.

Roughly .17 percent of the United States population is homeless ( source: https://endhomelessness.org/), or, more humanly stated, “unhoused” or “houseless.” San Francisco is witness to the third-highest unhoused population in the country, recently increasing by 17%. (editors note: we originally incorrectly listed this as 12% of the United States + SF population. We apologize for the typo.) Income disparity, sky-high rental rates, limited affordable housing, and a struggling social services network all exacerbate this chronic issue.

No one wants to ignore the most vulnerable among us. Yet, most of us feel overwhelmed in addressing such a challenge and the complex issues that inform it. Artist-activist Jana Sophia Nolle recognizes that collective uncertainty in addressing houselessness, and how to support those for whom this is a lived experience. In 2017, Nolle initiated Living Room, a project in which the temporary structures of people who are unhoused were re-created and photographed in the living rooms of housed San Franciscans.

I met Nolle during a Photo Alliance portfolio review earlier this year. The interview that follows unpacks questions about the participants: how they were approached and the delicate ethical balance she managed in working with people at opposite ends of the wealth spectrum; questioning the assumptions or biases about what leads to houselessness, and what role contemporary art has in addressing these issues.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Jana Sophia Nolle