Luna Arts proposed a participatory art project & street projection installation in collaboration with BHT Homeless Charity & First Base Day Centre, Brighton.Supported by Tee Chandler. 

In 2019-20 Luna Arts were in the process of planning a participatory photography & textile project with rough sleepers and a projected visual installation on the streets of Brighton with Brighton Housing Trust (BHT).The project’s aim was to help raise awareness and draw attention to the growing issue that Brighton at that time had one of the largest numbers of people sleeping rough on its streets in the UK.

A proposed element of the project was to project images of people enshrouded in duvets on empty buildings around Brighton at night. It was intended for the project to be launched on World Homeless Day, in order to raise awareness about the increasing number of rough sleepers locally and nationally, forcing the public to look up rather than down at the problem.

In addition to the projection project, Luna Arts was also planning a participatory textile  and photography project with people who slept rough or were insecurely housed in the city through First Base Day Centre refuge. The finished art piece was to be a sculptural installation, exhibited in a local public space to provide a focus point for information, talks, discussions about rough sleeping.

The project was cancelled due the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2020. Overnight Brighton and Hove Council supported people at risk from rough sleeping to find a temporary bed under the government’s pandemic provoked ‘Everyone In’ scheme. However according to recent troubling research by Shelter, over three-quarters (77%) of the people helped under the ‘Everyone In’ scheme are still not living in settled accommodation and rough sleeping is starting to creep on to the UK streets again.