A collaborative journey into the hidden world of hoarding.
For over a year, I worked alongside the team at Making Room, a grassroots organisation offering a radically different approach to hoarding. Instead of enforcing “deep cleans” — where the state or landlords enter a person’s home and clear it out in a matter of days — Making Room offers a process of therapeutic decluttering. It is slow, intentional, and deeply human work.
I wasn’t just photographing. I was inside the rooms, sorting through piles, listening to stories, and slowly helping clear space — not only in people’s homes, but often in their lives. The work centred each individual and their choices, not their “problem.” Every object had a story. What might seem like rubbish to others often carried emotional weight — a trace of someone lost, a symbol of control, a memory that hadn’t yet faded. Discarding it wasn’t just about cleaning; it was about grieving, healing, and rebuilding trust — both in others and in oneself.
Some of the people I met had lived with hoarding behaviours for decades. Many had been through trauma, loss, or periods of profound instability. The accumulation became a shield, a structure, a form of coping. But it also became a prison. And yet, what struck me most wasn’t the chaos — it was the gentleness of change, the resilience, the quiet courage it took to face each small decision, each object, each step forward.
This project is a record of that time — of rooms once filled to the ceiling and gradually emptied, of before-and-after images, yes — but also of the spaces in between. It’s a visual exploration of how the inner world can spill outward, and how healing can happen in the slowest, most ordinary ways: in sorting, in listening, in making space.
