Street Exit, 2019
Street Exit, 2019
60h x 28w cm
photo: Sylvain Deleu
From: 'And the Door Opened,' 2019-23
Street Exit is another of the pots that will be displayed in: Nature & Solitude, March 6th-8th, The Old Prison, Northleach, Gloucestershire, GL54 3JH.
The Images on the Pot
The images on the outside of the pot illustrate an account given to me by women@thewell, (w@w,) by one of the women they support. The interior images show where she was sleeping while she was homeless Hackney.
Her Account
She describes 'sofa surfing' with friends who were 'heavy substance users.' She wanted to get away from them so she moved to a tent in a 'green space in the area.' She was being commercially sexually exploited in both these situations. w@w helped find a place in a hostel and set in motion a support system to help her reduce and eventually cease her substance use. They also supported her desire to exit prostitution with the ultimate aim of finding safe, permanent accommodation.
Exiting Street Prostitution
Finding safe housing and exiting the sex trade are both longer term and more difficult goals to achieve given the extreme shortage of safe housing for women in London - particularly those with such complex range of vulnerabilities - and given the complications of accessing the jobs market in order to pay rent. Many women in this situation do not have a bank account, and without an address it is almost impossible to get one.
Where did the images come from?
The outside of the pot shows the progress of a woman from street to hostel




based on details from the above account and some others along with my own encounters with street homeless women on public transport.
Men's Violence to Homelessness Women
Homeless women often avoid hostels because they are heavily male dominated and pose a real threat of sexual violence from the men there. They also avoid the street, if they can, for the same reasons - and also because of the cold, the wet and the sheer exhaustion of never really sleeping, so public transport, being both public, rather than hidden, and a bit warmer and dryer is potentially a better option.
Surviving Street Homelessness
The images above show a woman begging in the underground both at the station and on a train, sleeping - or trying to - in the station and on a bus and, finally, in a hostel sitting at table with a cup of tea contemplating the long and difficult process ahead. Like many of the accounts W@W have asked me to work with, this woman's life is very 'in process.' She has not yet reached a safe conclusion.
How the Pot was Made and Why it is Broken
Street Exit was handbuilt, painting the interior imagery with slip as I built the pot up. Once complete but still damp, I paint the outside. It has its first firing when dry and at that point, it is smashed as part of a ceremony or other event. The shards are then glazed, fired again, and then put back together, leaving some pieces out so the interior images can be glimpsed through the cracks and gaps.
A Material Metaphor
This process is a response to the words I have often heard survivors of sexual abuse use: 'I was shattered. Now I'm piecing myself slowly back together.' The cracks are framed in gold leaf to honour the trauma and resilience of survivors and their determination to find a different life.