Journalist and photographer Alister McKeich, known professionally as Ali MC, has been imprisoned by the Bangladesh military, beaten to within an inch of his life in Saigon, and held at gunpoint in Jamaica.
But for Experiences of Homelessness, a multimedia exhibition focused on Melbourne’s homeless crisis, Ali has focused his lens a little closer to home.
“It started when I met a lady by the name of Cheryl who was selling the big issue outside of Melbourne Central in April, 2000.
“We just kind of got chatting, and as you may have noticed from my writing and what I do, I’m pretty curious by nature.
“I love talking to people and hearing peoples’ stories, so we ended up having a bit of a chat and I thought it would be interesting to do an article or some kind of photo essay on the experience of homelessness,” he said.
As Ali developed the project, ethical considerations around the photography of marginalised subjects were at the forefront of his mind, a lesson he learned during his photography of the oppression of the Rohingya in Myanmar and Khasi stone labourers in the northeast Indian province of Meghalaya.
“These days, as a white male Western journalist, you need to really consider what you’re doing there and how you interact with people.
“I think the paradigm has really shifted in the last 20 years, and we have to be a lot more mindful of our roles as journalists and photographers – who we’re communicating stories on behalf of and who we’re communicating to.
“Personally, I think you can always tell when a journalist is just doing something as a journalist or whether they’re doing it because they genuinely have empathy and care about the community they’re working with,” he said.
Production on Experiences of Homelessness is currently underway.
Pete Whelan 