Homelessness in Performance, Art and Society
In December 2025, the homeless charity Shelter recorded that at least 382,000 people were homeless in England, an 8% increase on the previous year. A shocking situation driven by austerity, lack of social housing, and a damaging disinvestment in welfare and support services.Homelessness In Performance, Art and Society argues that homelessness is not only a material condition but also a social, relational, and embodied one. It sets out the numerous ways that those experiencing homelessness are figured and represented in society in ways that perpetuate corrosive invisibility, stigma, exclusion, and dehumanisation.
Against this backdrop, Homelessness In Performance, Art and Society considers interventions made by the burgeoning arts and homelessness sector. It offers critically informed analysis of the artists, theatre-makers, social enterprises,investigative journalists, cultural, heritage and charitable organisations drawing on socially committed arts practice including autobiographical performance, photography and graphic novel projects, performance installations and festivals, as well as digital and embodied memorialising outputs and events.
The book examines how these cultural processes and practices provoke new ways of apprehending homelessness and examines what is at stake when people who have experienced homelessness have an opportunity to showcase their stories, artwork, heritage, creativity, and cultural leadership in ways that challenge reductive narratives, foster agency, and offer alternative cultural imaginaries of the homeless experience.
