In February, 2005, Tapioca* community art group began a collaborative installation and personal history book-making project with five residents of Joe’s Place, a transitional homeless shelter for men in Atlanta, GA.

The artists met with the men one evening a week for a period of three months. Tapioca artists and Joe’s Place provided the men with disposable cameras, art supplies, recycled materials, and taught them simple book and art-making techniques. The men took photographs, collected materials, and fashioned books as tangible expressions of their own histories. The artists in turn, created “portrait doors” to display the men’s books, and videotaped interviews to help tell the men’s stories. The charred and damaged doors were repurposed after a fire that damaged a portion of Clifton Night Hospitality, adjacent to Joe’s Place.

The thresholds installation was displayed at Arts for All Gallery in downtown Atlanta with an opening reception to honor the men open to the public.

*2006-7 members of Tapioca are MB Andrews, Susan Cipcic, Cecelia Kane and Susie Winton