Photographed, filmed, and conceptualized by Los Angeles-based videographer, director, and writer Kim Watson (he/him), TRESPASS is a groundbreaking, interdisciplinary journey into the world of the homeless, consisting of an immersive multi-media installation and integrated feature-length documentary.
While it is an integral element within the installation, the 90-minute documentary also offers the opportunity for wider exposure of the issue via film festivals, broadcast/streaming, and community screenings. It will represent the best of documentary filming, delivering solid narrative storytelling, quality writing, and a dynamic visual style. We are inside the tents, the streets and alleyways, shelters, and SRO hotels where loving homeless families survive alongside individuals struggling with addiction and mental illness... It's a complicated story that will include historical context, and a look at the advocates, power brokers, and stakeholders who impact housing/homeless policies and public opinions. Watson’s black & white photography (the basis of the installation) will be seamlessly woven throughout the documentary, offering an additional layer of realism and perspective. Powerful original music and sound design, created by our award-winning team, will fashion an audio world that is sometimes pensive, other-times disturbing, and always heightening the impact of the images on-screen. Post-screening discussions allow for the conversation and audience engagement to expand, as the subjects and experts assemble for audience Q & A's. Ultimately, our goal is to present a realistic, visually powerful, and unforgettably emotional experience.
TRESPASS' immersive, multi-media installation provides a shared learning experience in an environment that draws the visitor into the devastatingly dangerous and unjust reality of what it means to be UNHOUSED in America. Watson has assembled a select and diverse team of highly accomplished, award-winning artists, production designers, and social sector leaders from several disciplines, for collaboration on an installation based on Watson's dynamic photographs.
Free-to-the-public over the course of 2 full weeks (3 consecutive weekends), the breathtakingly moving Trespass installation illuminates the painstakingly-documented stories, moments, and daily lives of the Unhoused, as seen through Watson's keen camera lens and profoundly insightful prose. Drawing from scores of personal relationships the artist has developed with unhoused men and women for over a year, Trespass will be installed in a large industrial facility and feature a curated selection of Watson’s magnificent, intimate, sometimes difficult photos, enlarged and projected onto walls, hanging textiles, and objects. At every turn, the viewer is brought into an experiential engagement with those images, prompted by video narratives (excerpts from the documentary), soundscapes of original music and the voice of unhoused people, expert lighting and production design, and a distinctive built environment that authentically embodies the world of unhoused people.
Meant to encourage learning and insight in addition to the compassion it will inevitably impart, the overall Trespass installation programming will also include performances, moderated panel discussions, screenings, and other activities in which both housed and unhoused people collaborate as equals. Carefully vetted partner organizations, some of which have already made preliminary commitments, will offer expert subject matter guidance and importantly, the skills, social capital, and access to unhoused people who will participate in this effort, in order to realize Watson’s vision with authenticity, integrity, and inclusion. Importantly, the installation will offer paid internships to unhoused youth, thanks to a strategic partnership with the renowned Covenant House.
Key artistic, technical and scholarly contributors to the documentary and installation – the majority of whom are people of color and women - have already committed to the project and will collaborate to create, on an unprecedented scale, an interactive experience that confronts the stereotypes, biases, and misconceptions that have prevented society at large from empathizing with and acting to support our forgotten families, neighbors and friends who make up the community of the unhoused. Perhaps most importantly, Trespass will help its audience realize that inaction is no longer an option.
Now & In the Future:
Having already shot some of the doc's material, and amassed a collection of countless photographs and interviews with his generous subjects, Kim Watson is now deep in the process of selecting photos and refining the prose that will accompany each. In collaboration with his Executive Producers, Watson is also engaged in identifying, conducting outreach, and making presentations to, and securing support from funders. The production design team has already defined the basic physical architecture of the installation program. Next steps are to secure the space, the funding, the dates, and the appropriate partnerships, from which point production design will be solidified. Meanwhile,
Trespass is scheduled to debut in Los Angeles, with the hopeful support of the LA County Department of Mental Health. We are currently working with a team of social sector leaders to identify best-in-class community partners to which we can direct our audience to donate, volunteer, or otherwise engage. We have established partnerships with Covenant House and 211-LA, two dynamic organizations with years of experience serving the homeless community of Los Angeles.
The exposure, information, collaborations, and our art-as-a-tool-for-change approach promote understanding, engagement, and substantive conversations. Trespass provides an immediate opportunity for impact that extends beyond the installation itself. Key will be the engagement of community, to include all stakeholders. Unhoused people will benefit from every aspect of the project.
Trespass’ short- and long-term goal is to build awareness, educate, and promote a true sense of empathy for the Unhoused by attaching names, faces and stories to a community that exists in the shadows. It is our hope is that the installation will one day travel to other major cities, just as the documentary will find a broad audience among the film-going public.
The Trespass Installation Experience & How It Will Be Presented:
Imagine...you step into a darkened industrial space and an emotion-filled soundscape surrounds you as you encounter large-scale photos of L.A.’s unhoused projected on tattered fabrics which hang from the rafters. Continuing on, you move through a Sound-Cone and are unexpectedly assaulted by blaring sirens, loud voices, and street noise - the maddening sounds that the Unhoused live with day and night . This is their reality.
You move on, entering “PODS” where you are encircled by interactive touchscreens & headphones playing mini docu-narratives excerpted from the documentary, personal accounts, self-portraits and facts on homelessness in our time.
Touch a blank wall - a face and story appear - remove your hand and it’s gone until the next visitor follows … AND a small screening room and stage await you, where performances by unhoused street artists such as LA’s own Street Symphony, Urban Voices and Street Poets Inc. spotlight the stories and talents of our Homeless community. This is where special screenings of the documentary will take place.
Specifically scheduled moderated panels (mentioned above) will provide diverse perspectives, facts and an opportunity for dialogue between community stakeholders.
