ONE BITE CHALLENGE Series

Concept behind the "ONE BITE CHALLENGE" Series

There are 554,000 (January 2017 HUD announcement) homeless people in the United States, of which 193,000, an increase of 9% from 2 years ago, are completely unsheltered. After moving to the United States, I had to face this reality. In this country, it is not an exaggeration to say that you will see homeless people holding a board saying "HELP" and begging as they walk between each car stopped at an intersection on a daily basis. Further, the sight of them being ignored as if they are animals can be seen as a microcosm of the world.
Andy Warhol once said the following.
"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca-Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca-Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca-Cola, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
Of course this can be seen as his own cynical commentary based on the trends of the 1960s, but looking back on this in the modern age, you cannot help but reach the conclusion that this is a loss of humanity. Even if they are the same in substance, they are completely different when experienced from a tent pitched under a freeway and from a mansion in Beverly Hilles. That is the way people are.
This series attempts to overcome the barrier between the homeless who are forced to live as existences that have been separated from the general public. A homeless person living on the streets of LA and the artist alternately share bites of the same hamburger. In addition to sharing their situation, this may also lead to understanding, accepting, and establishing an emotional bond with them. By drawing a hamburger as a record of this interaction, I would like to question what the wall that exists between us and them is.
*United States Department of Housing and Urban Development