14 Stations: Photographed by David Michalek

14 Stations: Photographed by David Michalek depicts the traditional Christian devotional Stations of the Cross enacted by men and women who were recently homeless. The project was created in collaboration with the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing (IAHH), a nonprofit organization based at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City that is committed to bearing witness to the dignity of all vulnerable people, particularly those who have been homeless.

For each station, Michalek replaced the figure of Christ with a different man or woman, creating fourteen moving tableaux. The project avoided direct correlation with canonical representations of the Stations and opted instead for scenes of “everyday life” or, more specifically, scenes suggestive of the experience of being homeless. The large-scale black-and-white photographs, which are mounted on backlit display boxes, are meant to serve as social and personal statements.

David Michalek received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a certificate in filmmaking from NYU. He works as a freelance portrait photographer and creates performance-based work and multidisciplinary installations. He has been active as an artist since the 1990s and his stated endeavor is to unify aesthetics and ethics as well as to create work that stimulates the imagination.