For art installations around the world, preservation is often the focus. Whether that’s shielding paintings from UV light or the choice of materials to ensure longevity, art is often made to last as long as it can.
A recent collection of installations from Courage+ set out to do the opposite. From late May to early June, five pieces made of cardboard spent time outdoors, battered and bruised by the elements, on display in a state of vulnerability.
That vulnerability was intentional – a representation of what unhoused LGBTQ+ youth face every day. The beds, built from cardboard, showed not only what LGBTQ+ youth miss out on, but the conditions they face without a roof over their heads. The initiative, “Unsheltered,” was led by Courage+ in connection with marketing agency Bader Rutter and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
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“[The beds] represented a whole plethora of different things,” Brad Schlaikowski, co-founder and executive director of Courage+, said. “Literal weight that folks are carrying around when it’s raining and they don’t have a place to stay, but the additional weight, the instabilities they have, the lack of empathy that they get. It was powerful.”
The assortment of five bedrooms, placed around Milwaukee, channeled the emotions and experiences of homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth with the depiction of a warm, inviting space on the fragility of cardboard.
“When we first started to talk about the cardboard bed idea, I think it just felt so right because it felt so human,” Sarah Kmet-Hunt, executive creative director at Bader Rutter, said. “I know things feel so polarized in just about every walk of life, and that felt like the wrong direction to go in, to feed into that polarization or shock tactics. So we knew that we wanted to really do something to make the issue visible, but do it in a way that felt very human.”
Following a sunny installation day, the rain began to pour on day two, immediately displaying the intention of the installations. While droplets crashed to the ground, the sculptures began to transform, as drawn lines were blurred and the cardboard began to cave in on itself under its own weight and pressure.
And just as it did, passersby began to show their support.
“We saw these little acts of kindness where people were propping up a nightstand that was sagging, or helping to fix something in any way they could or even leaving little flowers on the beds, too,” Kmet-Hunt said. “That was just a wonderful little piece of humanity to remind us that people can be reached if you’re talking to them on a very human level.”
The support of those viewing the exhibits stretched across all demographics, as viewers of all backgrounds and ages stopped to take care of the installations.
“These were so impactful to so many different ages, and it’s not too often that you get pieces like that that speak to all age levels,” Schlaikowski said. A lot of times, folks my age will look at stuff that my kids do and be like, ‘I don’t get it.’ But these beds – everyone could get it.”
While looking out for the art, viewers could stop and consider what, or who else faces the same conditions.
“When the beds were placed out and people learned what the beds represented, they were so concerned about the cardboard getting wet, and we could say, ‘What if that was a child?'” Schlaikowski said. “Because in the last 10 years, people aren’t worried about what happens when it rains, when a child is staying on the street. So this helped us make it really real.”
Organizers selected the artists for the project from MIAD’s Community Partnership Program. The artists drew from their own lived experiences, or those of people they personally knew, when creating the bedrooms.
“They each had different art styles and a unique perspective,” Kmet-Hunt said. “With the six artists that we got, we could not have asked for a better group of people.”
The “Unsheltered” initiative followed a rebranding for Courage+, which reimagined itself in partnership with Bader Rutter after serving for nearly a decade as “Courage MKE.” The organization was first built on Facebook by Schlaikowski and his husband, Nick, after discovering a need in the local community. Now, it’s grown beyond its roots, represented in the revamping of the brand.
“After 10 years, it has taken more than just Brad and Nick to do this,” Schlaikowski said. “To change to Courage+, it just paints the complete picture of how many people it is. Courage+, it’s plus all of us.”
As the connection strengthened between Courage+ and Bader Rutter, so intertwined their commitment to the community, as displayed in the placing of cardboard beds around Milwaukee.
While the beds have since been brought in from their service outdoors, their presence and reception stand as what Courage+, Bader Rutter and MIAD aspire to see as a lasting message – one of support, optimism and hope.
“Hope is not visible right now, but it’s still around,” Schlaikowski said. “And these beds are a perfect example of that.”
