Street Kids

 

The photographs in this series take an unflinching look at homeless street kids in Sydney. Harsent has chosen to concentrate on the scars they bear and, in doing so, has managed to transcend the physical immediacy of their environment and look into the minds of these forgotten children.

While the tracklines seem the very definition of inner desperation, the artless graffiti – short, staccato and stabbed into flesh speaks outwardly of anger and frustration. But these self-inflicted wounds also seem in some way a personal punishment – a penance.

 

Could it be that these children, who live in the very fringes of society and largely by their own rules, have not been able to escape the powerful religious notions of guilt and atonement?