Animating research

Stills from Walking Through Wonderland.

The usual way for academics to get their research out is to publish. That’s exactly what Dalhousie professors Jeff Karabanow and Jean Hughes did with their research exploring the health of homeless youth.

“Can you be healthy on the street? Exploring the health experiences of Halifax street youth” was published in the Canadian Journal of Urban Research in the summer of 2007.

Did you read it? Most of us didn’t.

Youth are the fastest growing sector of the homeless population. In Halifax, you see them at busy intersections with their hard-luck signs or sitting on the sidewalk on Spring Garden Road with their change cups and calls of ‘god bless.’ They are also turning up in increasing numbers at shelters, like the Out of the Cold Shelter at St. Matthew’s United Church on Barrington Street. The volunteer-run emergency shelter can accommodate 15 people, although twice as many turn up each night desperate for a clean bed with a roof overhead.

And then there are those whose feet don’t really touch pavement and instead couch surf at friends’ places and move on. “We all know people like this,” says Dr. Hughes, associate professor in the School of Nursing. “It’s not a fun way to grow up.”

With more and more kids hitting the street, the professors felt there was urgency to their research and wanted to disseminate it more widely. And so they embarked on an unusual project: a collaboration with street kids in a summer film camp run out of a store front on Agricola Street in Halifax.

Now the culmination of that work has just been posted to Youtube. Walking Through Wonderland is an animated short running just under seven minutes that depicts with a mixture of realism and surrealism what it’s like to live on the street. (Search ‘walking through wonderland’ on Youtube.com)

“All the young people were really interested in animation and we liked it too,” says Dr. Karabanow, professor in the School of Social Work. “It’s a more creative way of telling a complex story.”

“Plus, the youth had a lot to say in terms of the research,” says Dr. Hughes. “What they told us verified our work and enriched it.”

Filmmaker Bryan Hofbauer was brought on board to work with the street youth and write the script. Derek Jessome directed the piece, based on storyboards and character sketches developed out of the participants’ own experiences.

In the film, a homeless kid walks the streets of a nameless city looking for his next meal. He looks a little like Shaggy in Scooby Doo with a mop of dirty blonde hair, whiskery chin and bags under his eyes, An old-man of a teenager, he’s haggard, stooped and constantly walking. “Jimmy” reveals he’s been on the run for three years.

An acquaintance with a shaved head and a kind heart takes him under his wing, pointing out a place to sleep and another to hangout. He asks him how he’s feeling; when he had his last check-up; if he’s got a health card. “You gotta get your shit checked out, man,” he tells Jimmy.

The film highlights the dualistic nature of the homeless culture among youth, says Dr. Karabanow. On the one hand, there is a sense of community and caring for each other; on the other, there is danger, poverty, poor health and, inevitably, a traumatic past. About half of the kids on the street have a mental illness of some kind.

“These young people are not throwaways; they have real talents and incredible survival skills,” says Dr. Hughes passionately. “They are people like anyone else.”

The professors hope to show the film wherever they can and invite people to take a look at it online. And while on Youtube, check out This Film is More Than Its Title, a two-and-a-half minute piece which was also emerged from the summer film camp. Creator Melanie Barron gives a poignant, poetic impression of the street using stop-motion animation.