Where Children Sleep: James Mollison’s Photos of Kids’ Bedrooms

A bedroom says a lot about a childhood. It shows who a child shares space with, how safe they are at night, whether there is room for books or toys, and sometimes whether there is a bed at all. That simple idea is the heart of Where Children Sleep, a project by photographer James Mollison.

Mollison, who was born in Kenya, grew up in England and is based in Venice, began the series from a brief about children’s rights. Over about two years, with support from Save the Children in Italy, he photographed children and the places they sleep in more than a dozen countries, from Nepal’s stone quarries to a Fifth Avenue apartment. Each child was photographed against the same plain backdrop, so the portraits look alike and the bedrooms tell the difference. The book, published by Chris Boot in 2010, was designed partly for readers aged nine to thirteen, as a way to build empathy with children whose lives look nothing like their own.

The sixteen children below are a selection from that series. Each portrait is followed by the child’s room, with a short note drawn from Mollison’s published captions.

Brazil and Colombia

Alex, 9, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Photos: James Mollison

Alex does not go to school. According to Mollison’s caption, he begs on the streets of Rio by day and sleeps wherever he can at night: a bench, a discarded sofa or the pavement. He still keeps in touch with his family and sometimes goes home for a meal, which shows how street children often live between two worlds rather than cut off entirely.

Ahkohxet, 8, Amazonia, Brazil

Photos: James Mollison

Ahkohxet (also spelled Ahkôhxet) belongs to the Kraho, an Indigenous people of Brazil numbering only around 1,900 at the time. The red paint on his chest comes from a tribal ritual, and he sleeps on the floor of a hut in a village whose homes are arranged in a circle. His community grows about half its food, hunts, and buys the rest partly with money paid by visiting film crews and photographers.

Juan David, 10, Medellín, Colombia

Photos: James Mollison

Juan David’s family are internally displaced people who fled drug-related violence in their hometown and now live in a shanty town in Medellín. His father repairs cars and struggles to find steady work, and the family has poor access to schools and hospitals. Juan David still goes to school, loves football and says he wants to be a doctor.

Israel and the West Bank

Bilal, 6, Wadi Abu Hindi, the West Bank

Photos: James Mollison

Bilal is a Bedouin boy who lives with his parents and five siblings and helps look after the family’s goats. Mollison’s caption explains that building permits for Bedouin and Palestinian families in the area are routinely refused because the land is zoned agricultural, and that the family’s first house was bulldozed by the Israeli military. When the photo was taken they had laid new foundations and feared another demolition.

Tzvika, 9, Beitar Illit, the West Bank

Photo: James Mollison

In the same territory as Bilal, Tzvika lives in Beitar Illit, a gated Israeli settlement of tens of thousands of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews where, according to the caption, televisions and newspapers are not allowed. He shares a room with his sister and two brothers, studies religion as his most important subject, and wants to become a rabbi. Placing Bilal and Tzvika side by side shows two childhoods in the same small territory that rarely meet.

Douha, 10, Hebron, the West Bank

Photos: James Mollison

Douha lives with her parents and many siblings in a Palestinian refugee camp in Hebron and shares a bedroom with five sisters. Mollison records that her older brother carried out a suicide bombing in 1996 and that the Israeli army later destroyed the family home. Douha walks ten minutes to school and says she wants to become a paediatrician.

Nepal and China

Indira, 7, Kathmandu, Nepal

Photos: James Mollison

Indira has worked at a granite quarry since she was about three, breaking stone alongside many other children. Her family lives in a single room, and the children sleep on a mattress on the floor. She also walks to school and helps her mother at home, and her dream is to become a dancer.

Bikram, 9, Melamchi, Nepal

Photos: James Mollison

Bikram lost both parents in Nepal’s civil war and lives with his grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins in a stone house two hours’ uphill walk from the nearest road. Goats and buffalo live on the ground floor, which also serves as the kitchen, and the family sleeps in the corn store above, lit by a bulb running off a car battery. They grow their own wheat, lentils and vegetables but cannot afford meat or milk; Bikram works hard at school and wants to be a doctor.

Netu, 11, Kathmandu, Nepal

Photos: James Mollison

Netu’s portrait shows her wrapped in a lilac shawl. Her room is a makeshift shelter of timber poles and plastic sheeting, with a raised wooden bed, a small television, a poster of Hindu goddesses and a few pairs of shoes on the earth floor. It is a reminder that many families in fast-growing cities like Kathmandu live in self-built homes on the city’s edge.

Dong, 9, Yunnan, China

Photos: James Mollison

Dong lives with her grandfather, parents and sister in rural Yunnan, where the family grows rice and sugar cane. She shares a room with her parents and sister, walks about 20 minutes to school, and watches an hour of television after homework. She enjoys writing and singing and hopes to become a police officer.

Japan

Ryuta, 10, Tokyo, Japan

Photos: James Mollison

Ryuta is a young sumo wrestler who had been competing for several years when he was photographed. He lives with his parents and younger sister and is also a Boy Scout. Children’s sumo has a strong following in Japan, and young wrestlers often train for years before they reach their teens.

Risa, 15, Kyoto, Japan

Photos: James Mollison

Risa is a maiko, an apprentice geisha. She lives in a teahouse with 13 other women and sleeps with five of them in a room that doubles as a dining and tea room by day. Her training in dance, music and etiquette continues a tradition that has survived in Kyoto for centuries.

West Africa

Anonymous, 9, Ivory Coast

Photos: James Mollison

This boy is not named to protect him. According to Mollison, he is an orphan and a refugee from the civil war in neighbouring Liberia, and attends a school in Ivory Coast for former child soldiers. He lives in a concrete shack with some of his classmates.

Lamine, 12, Bounkiling village, Senegal

Photos: James Mollison

Lamine attends his village’s Quranic school, which does not admit girls, and shares a room with several other boys on simple beds propped up on bricks. From 6 am he works on the school farm, learning to dig, harvest maize and plough with donkeys, and in the afternoons he studies the Quran. In his free time he plays football with friends.

The United States and Scotland

Joey, 11, Kentucky, USA

Photos: James Mollison

Joey lives with his parents and older sister and often goes hunting with his father; he owns a shotgun and a crossbow and shot his first deer at seven. His family eats what they hunt, and Joey told Mollison he thinks killing animals purely for sport is wrong. The wider series also includes Jasmine, a four-year-old Kentucky pageant contestant, a reminder of how different two childhoods in the same state can be.

Rhiannon, 14, Darvel, Scotland

Photos: James Mollison

Rhiannon lives with her parents and brother in a terraced house in an area affected by heroin use and gang violence, and her family has faced abuse from neighbours. Like her parents, she has worn a mohawk since she was six; the family belongs to a close punk community that looks after its own.

What the bedrooms reveal

Seen together, these photographs make an argument without a single slogan. The same plain portrait backdrop puts every child on equal footing, and then the bedrooms show how unequal their circumstances are: some sleep on the street or in a quarry worker’s single room, others in rooms full of their own things.

The series also avoids the easy story that poverty belongs only to faraway countries. Hardship appears in Scotland and the United States, and comfort appears in places many readers might not expect. What links the children is not money but the hopes they share with Mollison: to be a doctor, a dancer, a police officer, a rabbi.

For teachers and parents, the book works well as a conversation starter. Children can compare a room with their own, find each country on a map, and talk about rights every child should have, such as schooling, safety and a home that cannot be taken away. The full series is available in Mollison’s book and on his website.

Sources: Photographs by James Mollison, Where Children Sleep (Chris Boot, 2010); caption details from the Where Children Sleep exhibition checklist (Curatorial Assistance), LensCulture, The Marginalian (Maria Popova, 2011), Mic and Gigazine. Gallery first shared via Distractify and True Activist.

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