Poison Flower

Poison Flower is an in-depth & intimate window in the embattled lives of a community homeless alcoholic, drug addicts surviving on the streets of Harlow Town, Essex, UK, Armed with a filming camera, my intention was to film the unseen lives of the down-trodden, destitute underbelly of a declining British southern working class town. I moved into a tent alongside them, adopted their life style, immersed myself totally with the community to fully understand their existence and so truly capture their lives. I won them over with my guitar, writing songs about their past lives, their present troubles and hopes for a better life. I created this feature length documtary http://www.poisonflower.tv which is currently on the film festival circuit. (I can send you the link to the 60min film if you’d like to watch it) The accompanying photography series resulted from finding two analog film camera’s (Minolta 303 & Canon ae-1) & box of out of date films in a bin, as the community would live from food found in bins. As I developed the photos, I’d create diaries with the prints, which I’d give to one of the community (Mel) who would hand the diaries out for the individuals to write how they felt about their lives. Over the year I was living with the community 6 dairies where created, which include a suicide note, poems, pages of criminal records, eviction notices and prison letters. The collection is a selection of these diaries, which I have edited into a book.