TRAVERSE

THE ANALYST
WHERE CHILDREN SLEEP
WRITTEN BY MARIA MCCANN
SOME CHILDREN GROW UP IN POVERTY, LACKING FOOD AND
SANITATION, WHILE OTHERS ARE BORN IN COUNTRIES WHERE
BASIC NECESSITIES ARE TAKEN FOR GRANTED.
You can learn a lot about children by studying their facial
expressions, or hair, or clothes, or body language. But if you
really want to understand what matters most to a child, you
must enter that distinctive sanctuary: their bedroom.
After all, as documentary photographer James Mollison
notes, a bedroom represents a “personal kingdom” for many
children. “When I was a child, my bedroom was my one space
that I was allowed to personalize and make my own,” Mollison
said in a telephone interview from his home in Venice, Italy.
“If you saw my bedroom, you would have known more about
me than if you just saw a photograph of me.”
Mollison started thinking along these
lines back in 2004, when he was approached
about doing a photography
project tied to children’s rights. He knew
he wanted to do something that stood
apart from the familiar, haunting images
used by many charities.
“A lot of charities use photos from a
war-torn place or a disaster area, and in
the photos the children are always smiling
or kind of pleading with you with their eyes,” said Mollison,
37. “They work on a very emotive level, but you’re left
knowing very little about the kid.”
The result is “Where Children Sleep,” a Mollison photo
book published by Chris Boot that is arresting both for the
astonishing differences it exposes, and the astonishing
similarities. No matter how unalike the kids in the book may
seem, it quickly becomes clear that they would almost
certainly be friends if they could just spend a little bit of
time together. Mollison’s hope was that the book would
resonate with both children and adults.
94 TRAVERSE