WE ARE ALL HOMELESS (2022) by Willie Baronet
Since 1993, Baronet has purchased more than 2,000 signs from the homeless as part of a long-term art project titled, We Are All Homeless. It started on a whim and only later did Baronet make the connection that 1993 was also the first time he confronted his physically abusive father as an adult. Baronet was never physically homeless but never felt safe at “home” as a child. Collecting the signs and the stories of people who sold him their signs made him ask the question, “What is home?” He has since used this collection to create installations to similarly raise awareness in others about homelessness. The work has been seen across the United States and in the United Kingdom. During the month of July 2014, Baronet and three filmmakers began a thirty-one-day, cross-country trip to buy signs in twenty-four cities. The group interviewed more than 100 people on the streets and purchased over 280 signs, which became the subject of the documentary Signs of Humanity (2016).
In this exhibition, Baronet collaborated with the conceptual artist Michael Corris and created a zine titled, Incidents on the Street: A Workbook (2022), based on the stories these signs revealed.