James Mollison: Where Children Sleep. 2010

A graduate of Oxford Brookes University and the Newport School of Art and Design, Kenya born photographer James Mollison, undertook a notable project while working in Italy, at Benetton’s creative lab, Fabrica. Weaving around the core idea of children’s rights worldwide, Mollison reflected on his own childhood and the spaces he inhabited, finally zeroing down on the thought of the bedroom and the child – a space that spoke much about culture, class, affinities, possessions or the lack of thereof. Since not all spaces where children slept were ‘rooms’, he chose to call the project ‘Where Children Sleep’. Combining portraits of children, with the spaces they sleep in, and accompanied by their individual stories, Mollison manages to evoke childhood and livelihoods across cultures and nations of the world – Mexico, Japan, Cambodia, Brazil, England, Italy, Israel and the West Bank, Kenya, Senegal, Lesotho, Nepal, China, India, USA among others. His work has been widely published worldwide, by Colors, The New York Times Magazine, the Guardian magazine, The Paris Review, GQ, New York Magazine and Le Monde. Take a look at some selections from ‘Where Children Sleep’.