Step Right Up, Step Right Up. . .

To raise awareness for the Weingart Homeless Center, agency David & Goliath from Los Angeles took a non traditional approach that made people imagine themselves homeless if only for a moment. They photographed a dozen of the 70.000 people living on the streets of Los Angeles. They gave each of them a blank cardboard sign and had them write the same message: Before you turn away, put yourself in my place. Followed by the URL, weingart.org. Then they took those images, blew them up life-size, removed their faces and made them into photo-realistic cardboard cutouts. Finally, they placed the cutouts in upscale shopping districts of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.

Kinda interesting, I can see foreign tourists putting their faces in the holes and mugging while a friend or spouse takes their photo. It's all entertainment, and for my money kinda misses the mark. It takes the squalor and misery of economic victimization and turns it into a carnival midway type of fun. We must remember that irony is a luxury which the homeless and much of the planet can't afford, nor utilize in their hunt for survival. If the agency of David and Goliath were there charging $5.00 a shot for the priviledge and subsequently pocketing the cash, then it would be perfect: the homeless get stiffed, the consumers buy a fun token of tourism, the ad agency makes a little cash, and the art world by reporting it somehow feels socially responsible. Oh, and the Weingart Center, they keep plugging away with soup kitchens, cots, and AA meetings. The world as we know it.

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