Homeless youth overcome with emotion after seeing photos of themselves on exhibit at MCA Denver

“Unheard Resilience” exhibit, featuring teens and young adults from Urban Peak youth shelter, runs through Feb. 18

Simmy Kifletsion, 19, joins other homeless youth from Urban Peak Shelter as they get the first chance to see themselves in a photo project exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver on Dec. 18, 2023 in Denver. The exhibit will run through Feb. 18, 2024. (Photo By Kathryn Scott/Special to The Denver Post)

Simmy Kifletsion stared up at a portrait of herself hanging in the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. The 19-year-old’s knees came close to buckling as she clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes brimming with tears.

The homeless teen never thought she’d see a photograph of herself displayed in a museum, but Kifletsion’s future looked brighter the longer she studied the pictures.

"This is insane," Kifletsion said. "It feels like my heart stopped."

On a Monday in late December, Kifletsion and her peers from the Urban Peak youth shelter got a first look at their exhibit "Unheard Resilience" at MCA Denver, which opened to the public the following day and runs through Feb. 18.

Kifletsion, who moved to Denver from Strasburg in August, lives at the shelter at 2100 Stout St., where she and other teens are taking University of Colorado Denver courses through a program called Pathways 2 Teaching that encourages marginalized students to become teachers.

One of her classes, taught by Urban Peak educator and state Rep. Tim Hernández, had students pick an item of theirs they felt best represented who they are. They interviewed each other about the item, wrote about its significance and then designed a photo shoot with their item with the help of local photographer Anthony Maes.