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The I AM MORE THAN is a project created by the women at SIG EQUINOX Brighton Women’s Service (BWS). Over the years this exhibition has included a wide range of media, such as photography, masks, poetry, and tapestry. This year, we created animated stories depicting health inequality for women experiencing homelessness. Please note that all opinions shared in these videos are unique to the individuals telling their stories.
Scroll down to watch the I AM MORE THAN entries this year.
Squiggle in the System is the story of a young woman who has experienced homelessness since she was a child, having gone through the care system. Squiggle has Autism and ADHD, which can sometimes make it difficult to manage systems by herself. In this animation, she talks about how difficult she finds visiting A&E, how frightened she becomes and how she feels like she is never listened to or heard.
Messed Up Big Head tells the story of a young woman’s struggle to be listened to about her physical health due to her mental health diagnosis and the impact that this had on her.
Chameleon tells the story of a woman and shares her experiences of homelessness and its impact on her. Chameleon highlights the difficulty people face when accessing prescribed medication for health issues when any substance dependency is present.
Use-Less is a narrative reflecting a woman’s struggle with her mental health and the difficulties she has faced when asking for help and accessing mental health support. She touches on her substance use challenges and her experiences of homelessness. Use-Less reflects on how mental ill health has created a barrier to recovering her life.
The Invisible follows the story of a woman reflecting on how women are affected by homelessness and the lack of services available specifically for women. The story sheds light on how women frequently find themselves having to access support in places that are unsafe for them and how this creates barriers to receiving treatment for both their physical and mental health.
I AM MORE THAN is a project that grew from a conversation that Janie Pamment, the Service Manager at the SIG EQUINOX Brighton Women’s Service (BWS), had with a woman experiencing homelessness. At the time, she was a drug and alcohol outreach worker for Equinox, a homelessness charity that supports women experiencing homelessness.
“One evening, I was sitting with a young woman experiencing homelessness, watching a team put up a large tent to be used as a performance venue by St Peter’s church. She asked me what was going on, and I told her about the Brighton Fringe Festival and what it was. She told me it wasn’t for people like her, and that’s when I was really struck by how marginalised people experiencing homelessness are and how disconnected from their own community they are. From this came the idea to support women to create art that connected them back to their community.”
I AM MORE THAN supports women in Brighton who are experiencing homelessness to use their creative voices to tell their communities who they are and that they are not defined by homelessness or any of the many issues that run alongside it. It aims to help women to challenge their negative belief systems about themselves and help them regain self-worth and confidence.
I AM MORE THAN is also about challenging the stigma attached to women experiencing homelessness and inviting the community to re-evaluate what they know and think. The hope is that we can close gaps and bring the women back into their community where they can be valued and supported.
Brighton Fringe works closely with local and national organisations to offer bursaries and opportunities to participants to bring their work to life at Brighton Fringe.
This year, BWS is working with Brighton University on this project. Last year, the team worked alongside Bloom Café, Brighton, a project of Safehaven (St Peters), and Brighton Probation, to participate in the festival.
The 2023 edition of the Brighton Fringe Festival also saw I AM MORE THAN win a bursary prize. This bursary aimed to support an artistic project that engaged with marginalised and vulnerable communities, as well as being an event centred around African & Asian Art Forms, Urban Art Forms, Spoken Word, Physical Theatre or Visual Art.
BWS is a female-only residential project providing low, medium and high support for women who have experienced homelessness, subtance use, criminal justice history, mental health and domestic abuse.
