Where Children Sleep.

I ran across this photo essay by photographer James Mollison on facebook, and couldn't wait to share it!  But first, I want to share how it all began.  So the organization Save the Children asked documentary photographer James Mollison to "come up with an idea for engaging with children's rights."  


He states, "From the start, I didn't want it just to be about 'needy children' in the developing world, but rather something more inclusive, about children from all types of situations. It seemed to make sense to photograph the children themselves, too, but separately from their bedrooms, using a neutral background. My thinking was that the bedroom pictures would be inscribed with the children's material and cultural circumstances ' the details that inevitably mark people apart from each other ' while the children themselves would appear in the set of portraits as individuals, as equals ' just as children.  I found myself thinking about my bedroom: how significant it was during my childhood, and how it reflected what I had and who I was.  It occurred to me that a way to address some of the complex situations and social issues affecting children would be to look at the bedrooms of children in all kinds of different circumstances."


And what he came up with was a powerful project - a photo essay of more than 200 children and their bedrooms, entitled "Where Children Sleep."  Here are some of the photos...

Four-year-old Kaya lives in Tokyo, where her mother spends $1,000 per month on her wardrobe:

James Mollison

A Romanian four-year-old living outside Rome, Italy with his undocumented family:

James Mollison

A 7-year-old Nepalese girl who works in a quarry and lives in a one-room home with her parents and siblings: 

James Mollison

Alyssa lives with her family in Harlan County, Kentucky:

James Mollison

Eight-year-old Ahkohxet lives with his tribe in the Amazon basin in Brazil: 

James Mollison

Nine-year-old Dong lives with his family in Yunnan, China: 

James Mollison

Nine-year-old Jamie lives with his family on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan: 

James Mollison

Nine-year-old Tzvika lives in the West Bank, in a gated community of 36,000 Orthodox Jews: 

Click HERE to see the complete collection of photos.