Green Room

Shacola's series Green Room began because the artist wanted to give the children at The Sophia Foundation for Children orphanage, 'Makarios Children’s Home' in Kenya a place to imagine, dream and play. It was that simple. She asked the children to choose how they wanted to be photographed and the children did the rest. Some pose with their brothers and sisters, others wear hand-made masks, or come with toys as props but the thing that unites them is a willingness to reveal themselves, to share their lives with the photographer and her camera. When Shacola started traveling to the Makarios Children’s Home in 2007 her heart never left. The children became her "V.I.P.s" and although the room was actually green, she intentionally titled the series to evoke associations with this Western idea of V.I.P culture – “green rooms” back stage - but purposely stripped the compositions of this key color so that each portrait features only the emotion on the children’s faces. Her point? What we celebrate as celebrity is so insignificant compared with what she has seen at this special home, where she learned that if you give children back their basic rights – shelter, protection, education and freedom – the rich, vibrant, innocence of childhood triumphs.