Dan Fleming has experienced heartbreak more than once. He watched a young woman, beaten black and blue by an ex-boyfriend, beg her mother to let her come home.
He watched that same girl sob after her mother said, “no, my new boyfriend doesn’t want you home.”
At the doorstep of his workplace, he has met teenagers whose parents left them to live on the harsh and unforgiving streets.
He has seen the places others in Bangor don’t know about — abandoned houses reeking of sewage, heavily graffitied bridge underpasses, riverbanks littered with tattered blankets and granola bar wrappers.
For four years, Fleming, an outreach worker for the Shaw House, has taken photographs of these places to help him remember where to find and help teenagers without a safe place to sleep at night. He knows what homelessness looks like, and it’s not what many would expect.
Now those powerful images have taken on a new life as art and are on display at the Art Haus gallery in Nocturnem Draft Haus in Bangor through Aug. 8.
“There are stories that will make you hate humanity,” Fleming said of the circumstances under which many teenagers end up at the Shaw House. “When you think of homeless kids, you think of punk little runaways. But most of our kids were tossed out years ago. … We’ve had parents drop their kids off and just be like ‘I’m done with them.’”
Fleming helps identify and connect with at-risk youth in the Bangor community and beyond. The photographs he took of these places while on the job weren’t originally for artistic purposes, but Cara Oleksyk, curator of the Art Haus, saw their creative merit. After presenting his work at PechaKucha in Bangor this past spring, it became clear Fleming’s photography had wide appeal.
That’s why his photos are hanging on the walls of the space, and that’s why his message to the community about at-risk youth is gaining an audience.
“I saw his photos a couple years ago, and I realized that this was part of his creative expression. And I value that,” Oleksyk said. “I realize how important all these different threads of our community are, including the Shaw House and young people who live there or get services and resources there.”
The mission of the Shaw House “is to engage youth who are homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless in achieving stability and a viable plan for the future by providing a safe, stable environment, access to essential services, supportive adult connections and to advocate for changes that address the needs of homeless youth.”
“I’m not a photographer,” Fleming said. In fact, he doesn’t even own an actual camera. He used what he had on hand at the time — his iPhone — to document the places he sees every day in his line of work.
Fleming’s stark, straightforward style and the reason behind his photography is what drew Oleksyk and Art Haus director Zachary Robbins to his work in the first place.
“He’s humble. He’s a hard worker. He wants to use the images that he’s taken … and put them toward something bigger than himself,” Robbins said.
Haunting images of sagging tents and abandoned family photo albums are among the many shots Fleming has taken. Others are more abstract, such as his snapshot of a cracked brick wall chalked with the words “Be kind,” and the simple response “I try.” He hopes his photography shows homelessness isn’t always found in obvious places.
“If you’ve gone up Main Street, you’ve seen homeless kids, ” Fleming said. “Sometimes you can’t tell from sight who’s homeless and who’s not.”
In his artist statement, Fleming explained what the Shaw House has taught him and what his photos represent.
“There are places that exist in this city where these throwaway kids go to find one another, to find a place where they belong, to be accepted by someone, anyone,” Fleming said in the statement. “Often these are not safe places. The campsites, abandoned houses and bridge underpasses can offer them many things, but a home shouldn’t be one of them.”
Fleming’s photography can be viewed until Aug. 8 at the Art Haus gallery between 3 p.m. to closing time Monday through Saturday. Prints are available for purchase, and framed pieces are being raffled off. All proceeds benefit the Shaw House in Bangor.