by PATRICK LEJTENYI

The homeless can make for a touchy subject for artists. This became apparent to Michael Ensminger soon after he began his photo project in September 2000. The Denver-based photographer and actor posed as a homeless person over the course of eight months, wearing ratty clothes and growing his long hair and beard longer and shaggier, while a friend would take photos of him looking like a classic homeless man. Ensminger would round out the costume - he considers his look as such - with cardboard signs that posed pointed remarks about North American consumer culture. His series of 90 photographs, entitled "What's Your Sign?", will hang at the Liane and Danny Taran Gallery at the Saydie Bronfman Centre (5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine) from Sept. 8 to Nov. 13 as part of the Mois de la Photo.

While the critics liked his work, he says, others certainly did not. "Some people were very indignant about what I was doing," he says. "They'd yell things [at the photographer] like, ‘You fucker, leave him alone!' And these were generally liberal people. I found them as narrow-minded as anybody, because they had these pre-formed ideas about how to approach the homeless."

Filthy sacred cows

Ensminger says he doesn't usually go in for "socio-political stuff," but got involved in this project like he does with others - spontaneously. But, as his downtown Denver neighbourhood began experiencing the same gentrification process as many other North American cities, he saw the homeless being even more marginalized. The series, he says, took on a life, and a perspective, of its own.

"In the history of photography, we tend to see homelessness as more of an arty thing," he says. "But I'm not doing that at all. I want to look at the homeless and at the way society approaches them, as something almost like they're sacred cows. They just can't deal with them, especially if they're portrayed in a humourous way. They're either bums or they're these poor dear things, like they're something noble."

Ensminger is careful not to chose a side. He isn't an advocate for the homeless, although many social workers enjoyed his exhibit. And he wasn't trying to rehash the "my experience as a homeless person" cliché.

"I wasn't trying to be something I'm not," he says. "I'm not that courageous. I wasn't ready to walk away from my life and my business. I was aware of the options of what I can do, and at this point, I'm not trying to illuminate something about the homeless. I'm trying to wring the irony out of it."

Funny bums

Of course, not everybody who saw the exhibit got the irony. "Some people thought I was poking fun at them or being irreverent," he says. "And others would just laugh, and get nothing out of it. They just thought it was hysterically funny."

But it did reach some people, he says. "Some homeless people, or formerly homeless people, did see it and they liked it," he says. "They found it poignant and funny."

Some even tried to get in on the act, offering to pose for the photos. But Ensminger says he isn't ready for a complete exhibit on actual homeless people yet - although that will change in the future. He says he didn't want to use them in his project both out of respect and because he wanted to tell another story. But he does plan on delving further into the issue.

He is aware of the criticism that's being levelled at him - he's being exploitative, or making light of a serious problem, and so on - but he dismisses it. "It's the people with an agenda that are uptight" about his work, he says. "Every time somebody thinks they have something all figured out, they get tedious and didactic."

For more information on Mois de la Photo, visit www.moisdelaphoto.com.