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About Houseless
Houseless is a series of night photographs made in Tirana, the capital of Albania. It follows the city's older houses, one- and two-storey homes, villas and walled courtyards, as they crumble between the apartment blocks and towers that have risen around them since the end of communism. Roofs have fallen in, doorways are bricked up, plaster peels back to the brick and trees grow out of the rubble. Most frames are lit only by streetlamps and the windows of the buildings next door.
The series opens on a red star set on a whitewashed plinth, an emblem of the country's communist decades, still standing in the city at night. From there it moves through backstreets such as Rruga Kont Urani, past an ochre villa with an octagonal colonnaded balcony, a red pedimented house hidden behind trees, and concrete stairs climbing between patched houses hung with sheets and painted signs.
The houses are empty of people but not of life: a bicycle leans against a graffiti wall, curtains glow inside a half-ruined villa, power cables cross the sky. Houseless is a record of a domestic Tirana that is disappearing street by street.
All photographs
01A whitewashed plinth with a red star at night, an arcaded building under a streetlamp behind itTirana, Albania 
02Two-storey house with crumbling plaster and exposed brick on a narrow street at nightTirana, Albania 
03Shadows of broken roof beams falling across a stone wallTirana, Albania 
04Graffiti-covered wall with a rusted door and a mint-green bicycleTirana, Albania 
05Collapsed roof timbers behind a brick wall, lit apartment blocks beyondTirana, Albania 
06Rruga Kont Urani street sign on a stone wall beside a striped tarpRruga Kont Urani, Tirana 
07Faded ochre villa with an octagonal colonnaded balcony, curtains lit insideTirana, Albania 
08Bare tree in front of a sagging balcony strung with power linesTirana, Albania 
09Overgrown house under a dark sky crossed by cablesTirana, Albania 
10Peeling white wall with graffiti names and a window filled with debrisTirana, Albania 
11Red villa with a pediment behind dense trees and a fenceTirana, Albania 
12A small green tree growing from rubble against a mud-brick ruinTirana, Albania 
13Corner of a yellow house seen from below, shutters hanging openTirana, Albania 
14Arcaded building with barred ground-floor windows under sodium lightTirana, Albania 
15Concrete stairs between two patched houses hung with sheets and painted signsTirana, Albania 
16Stone house with bricked-up doorway and plants along its baseTirana, Albania