Kevin Harman: Signs of Life

Since 2015 Kevin Harman has worked to highlight homelessness, and in particular one individual’s desire for shelter and time spent without it. In his provocative, performative work, Signs of Life, Harman has worked to showcase and transform homeless signs designed by Stevie Jenkins into a series of installations.

During lockdown, Harman commissioned Dovecot to make the first in a series of one-off made-to-order tufted rugs based on the signs.

“A significant percentage of profits made by selling the artworks” he says, “will be given back into homeless charities, including Grassmarket Community Projects in Edinburgh.”

The Signs of Life project was initially exhibited at a former power plant at Leith Docks in 2017, and since then Harman has commissioned inventive interpretations of Jenkins’ signs asking for money to get a bed for the night. These include signs attached to letting agents’ boards, ceramics, an oversized four-poster bed draped in textiles and cushions adorned with the messages, a pattern for fabric printed onto luxurious velvet at the Glasgow School of Art’s Centre for Advanced Textiles and now the Dovecot commission.

For more information contact www.signs-of-life.co.uk

Image: Ken Gray