Every kid deserves a room of their own.

 

 

 

Cardboard bed art exhibit on display at live location.

Each year, 1.7 million LGBTQ+ teens go without a safe place to sleep.

The fragile, exposed bedrooms of the Unsheltered series bring unhoused LGBTQ+ youth into the light — and ask the community to help put bias to bed.

 

A bedroom should be a refuge. A place to feel safe, seen and whole. For many LGBTQ+ teens in Wisconsin, this place does not exist.

About Unsheltered

Cardboard bedrooms exposed to the elements convey the vulnerability of kids who don’t have a place to call home.

 

Each bed is unique, representing the personality of an unseen teen as imagined by the artist.

Cardboard bed art exhibit on display at live location.
Colectivo 68th & Wells

A lived-in room for a nature lover, this design explores the way a teen’s sense of safety indoors affects the way they experience the natural world outside.

Artist:
  • Lillith Forsythe (she/they)
Location Here
Cardboard bed art exhibit on display at live location.
Cathedral Square Park

Objects that should be stuffed and huggable are flat and rigid in this design as a reminder of what is missing from many LGBTQ+ teens’ lives.

Artists:
  • Olivia Lorber (she/her)
  • Reese Rousseau (he/him)
Location Here
Cardboard bed art exhibit on display at live location.
Colectivo Lakefront

In this fiber artist’s design, oversized elements imply a room stuck in childhood and a strained parent-teen relationship, while quilted paper creates the illusion of softness and security.

Artist:
  • Makenna Schibler (she/her)
Location Here
Cardboard bed art exhibit on display at live location.
Lakefront Brewery

A place of fantasy with winged cats as spiritual protectors, this dreamy space is inspired by the artist’s own home insecurity as a tween, with nods to lost items and personal treasures.

Artist:
  • LaNia Sproles (they/them)
Location Here
Cardboard bed art exhibit on display at live location.
Catalano Square

A safe haven for a teen to experiment, play and introspect without judgment, this piece honors the artist’s own trans experience and the other young trans people in his life.

Artist:
  • Jo Willis (he/him)
Location Here
Group of professionally dressed individuals posing together at a formal event with a curtain backdrop and patterned carpet.

Courage+ helps kids find their safe space.

Formerly Courage MKE, Courage+ supports LGBTQ+ youth in Wisconsin and beyond, with:

  • Safe and inclusive housing
  • Trauma-informed care
  • Support and resources.

To reach every young person in need, Courage+ needs you.

Bader Rutter and MIAD partnership logo featuring the BR monogram in gray and MIAD in bold, colorful block letters.

Unsheltered represents a collaboration between local advertising agency Bader Rutter and artists from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design’s Community Partnership Program, in cooperation with Courage+.

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