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M.F. (Michiel) Bles

Michiel Bles is curator and coordinator of Het Beelddepot (The Image Depot). He worked closely with a number of documentary photographers and photojournalists creating photo stories for the image bank of Het Beelddepot. The image bank offers alternative images of homelessness in order to change the stigmatizing imagery used nowadays.

An extensive study conducted in 2021 showed that the image of homeless people in the Dutch media has hardly changed in the past year. News media still regularly choose stereotypical images when reporting about this problem, which today affects people from various background, age groups and social classes. Young homeless people indicate that they do not feel represented by this way of reporting.

In the second phase, which started in 2023, the project also targets (local) governments, non-profit and aid organisations. To support these organizations to report more representatively about this problem, in text and images.

Michiel is an independent multimedia maker with experience in media, non-profit and the creative industry. He is also a graduated sociologist and teaches photo and video journalism at Fontys Journalistiek.

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M.F. (Michiel) Bles

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