All Photos © Alyssa Miserendino.
Chicago-based photographer Alyssa Miserendino‘s documentation of her own abandoned home in 2004 paved the way for her current project Our World Insideout. During the economic crash in 2009 the familiar emotion of loss and displacement resonated with her so much so that she began documenting foreclosed homes in the Chicago area, and eventually homes in Brazil and New Orleans. Miserendino has spent time photographing families in Brazil who are part of the favelas, historical abandoned sites, and reclaimed homes. In New Orleans the project focused on the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and what was left untouched versus what people have squatted in to make their own home.

Miserendino is currently working with an organization in Brazil to help turn the most popular squatted in building into the first urban public housing building in Rio de Janeiro. She says, “I created the imagery with the hope that this project will incite a visual, global dialogue concerning the used and unused resources; thus inspiring change. It touches on the many levels of humanity and one of the most sacred places for us: home.”