Bir­min­gham in Augu­st can feel like Octo­ber in my nati­ve Ita­ly. I was taking a stroll throu­gh the city cen­trein, but the rain and wind for­ced me to take shel­ter in the public libra­ry. As the how­ling wind rat­tled the win­do­ws, I wal­ked slo­w­ly throu­gh the hall­ways on the top floor fil­led with books and glass doors. This is whe­re I met Alan Gignoux, the award-win­ning pho­to­gra­pher and pro­du­cer of docu­men­ta­ry pho­to­gra­phy and films devo­ted to socio-poli­ti­cal and envi­ron­men­tal issues around the world. He was the­re becau­se the libra­ry was the venue of his exhi­bi­tion of pho­to­gra­phy titled “You can see me, but I don’t exi­st”. The ima­ges had been shot with a pin­ho­le came­ra and por­trayed asy­lum see­kers living in lim­bo in the cities of Euro­pe. What incre­di­ble stro­ke of luck! It was thanks to the foul wea­ther that I got to meet Alan. After a long chat, I took out my smart­pho­ne and asked him whe­ther I could inter­view him. He gra­ciou­sly accep­ted. The trans­cript is below.

Why an exhi­bi­tion of pho­to­gra­phy about refu­gees?

I fir­st beca­me inte­re­sted in the dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stan­ces of refu­gees in 2003 in Leba­non, whe­re I wit­nes­sed the lar­ge num­ber of Pale­sti­nian refu­gees living in camps around the city. I visi­ted the Sabra and Sha­ti­la refu­gee camps, whe­re the noto­rious Israe­li mas­sa­cre occur­red on 16th Sep­tem­ber 1982: here 2,000 to 3,500 refu­gees and Leba­ne­se citi­zens were kil­led by a right-wing Leba­ne­se mili­tia in coor­di­na­tion with the Israe­li army. I was hor­ri­fied by the con­di­tions in the camps and by the sheer num­ber of peo­ple cram­med into such a small spa­ce. I met peo­ple in their fif­ties and six­ties who had lived almo­st their enti­re lives in the camps and saw no pro­spect of ever retur­ning home or get­ting citi­zen­ship in Leba­non or elsewhe­re. I wan­ted to find a way of get­ting to the heart of the Pale­sti­nian que­stion and demon­stra­ting the pain of exi­le being expe­rien­ced by the refu­gees, whi­le at the same time por­tray­ing them as indi­vi­duals, rather than a face­less group.

With fun­ding from the Bri­tish Coun­cil in East Jeru­sa­lem, I tra­ve­led around the Midd­le East pho­to­gra­phing Pale­sti­nians in the refu­gee camps and then went to Israel to pho­to­gra­ph their for­mer homes and vil­la­ges in what is today Israel, to show what has hap­pe­ned to their hou­ses, agri­cul­tu­ral lands, and for­mer com­mu­ni­ties. I then pre­sen­ted the por­trai­ts and land­sca­pe ima­ges in pairs, allo­wing them to come toge­ther in the gal­le­ry spa­ce in a way which has not been pos­si­ble in the real world sin­ce 1948. The exhi­bi­tion, titled Home­land Lost, was exhi­bi­ted exten­si­ve­ly in the Midd­le East, inclu­ding Israel, and in Lon­don, Amster­dam, and Ypres. The cura­tor for this pro­ject was Jen­ny Chri­stens­son, who was also the pro­ject lea­der for “You can see me, but I don’t exi­st” in the UK. On both pro­jec­ts, Jen­ny and I wor­ked toge­ther on research and crea­ti­ve con­cep­tua­li­sa­tion as well as plan­ning and exe­cu­tion.

I con­ti­nued with the Home­land Lost con­cept by loo­king at ano­ther long-term refu­gee situa­tion – the Saha­ra­wi, who have been exi­led to refu­gee camps in the desert outsi­de Tin­douf sin­ce 1975, with the pro­mi­sed refe­ren­dum on self-deter­mi­na­tion in Western Saha­ra delayed inde­fi­ni­te­ly. I have visi­ted the Saha­ra­wi refu­gee camps in Alge­ria regu­lar­ly sin­ce then and I am cur­ren­tly wor­king with Saha­ra­wi direc­tor Bra­him Ali on a short docu­men­ta­ry film about the Al-Wali band, who tra­ve­led the world, in the 1970s and ear­ly 80s, sprea­ding the Saha­ra­wi fight for free­dom throu­gh their songs. I am also wor­king with my stu­dio, Gignoux­pho­tos, on a book based on my pho­to­gra­phy from Western Saha­ra and the camps span­ning the last almo­st twen­ty years.

When the refu­gee cri­sis occur­red in Euro­pe, I beca­me inte­re­sted in the expe­rien­ce of refu­gees who have fled war and oppres­sion and risked their lives to come to an alien, and in many cases hosti­le, envi­ron­ment. I star­ted pho­to­gra­phing refu­gees in Calais in 2018 and con­ti­nued from the­re to Dun­kirk, Brus­sels, Vien­na, and Mal­mo and Bastad in Swe­den. The pro­ject was kick­star­ted throu­gh a work­shop at Pho­to­fu­sion, whe­re I fir­st star­ted to deve­lop the pin­ho­le came­ra con­cept. In 2022, I recei­ved an Arts Coun­cil England grant that allo­wed me to col­la­bo­ra­te with UK based refu­gees throu­gh wri­ting work­shops and crea­te the “You can see me, but I don’t exi­st” exhi­bi­tion-book. The UK pro­ject was deve­lo­ped and pro­du­ced by the team at Gignoux­pho­tos.

A phra­se in your pre­sen­ta­tion impres­sed me:  “ero­sion of self”. I belie­ve you mana­ged to find the deep mea­ning of tho­se refu­gee words in your sho­ts: blur­red faces in motion­less stree­ts. The city seems sta­tio­na­ry, whe­reas, in fact, your cha­rac­ters are sta­tio­na­ry, not the city. I belie­ve this is a will­ful con­tra­dic­tion. Is it real­ly?

I under­stand what you are say­ing, and I think your inter­pre­ta­tion is inte­re­sting, but it was not our ori­gi­nal inten­tion.

Whi­le visi­ting the refu­gee camps in Calais, I had the idea to expe­ri­ment with the pin­ho­le came­ra as I was loo­king at the idea that peo­ple are moving across bor­ders aiming to stay invi­si­ble to the autho­ri­ties. I am real­ly inte­re­sted in the idea that the­re are thou­sands of peo­ple for­ced to tra­vel using dan­ge­rous rou­tes to crea­te a new life, and to get to their final desti­na­tion, they have to lose their iden­ti­ty tem­po­ra­ri­ly to pro­tect them­sel­ves. I thought that the pin­ho­le came­ra was an ideal tool to use in the­se cir­cum­stan­ces as it is sim­ple to use, discreet, easy to take into the refu­gee camps, and less threa­te­ning than a stan­dard came­ra, which refu­gees might asso­cia­te with the media. I was also aiming to crea­te an ima­ge that distor­ted the per­son in the fra­me, so that I could blur their iden­ti­ty, so that the per­son would be untra­cea­ble. This also allo­wed me to col­la­bo­ra­te with peo­ple who would other­wi­se have decli­ned to be pho­to­gra­phed. It was in later discus­sions with the refu­gees that Jen­ny (who tra­ve­led with me in Swe­den) and I under­stood that the­re was a second mea­ning to the blur­ring, name­ly that it cap­tu­red the ero­sion of self that the refu­gees them­sel­ves often refer­red to.

The clear back­ground was neces­sa­ry for con­tra­st – but also inten­ded to empha­si­ze that the refu­gee was an invi­si­ble pre­sen­ce in the Euro­pean city – and the less visi­ble the indi­vi­dual is to the autho­ri­ties and the local popu­la­tion, the grea­ter the ero­sion of self for that per­son is.

You tra­vel­led throu­gh Fran­ce, Bel­gium, and Austria, and Swe­den in 2018 to take the­se pho­to­gra­phs. Is the­re a com­mon thread bet­ween all the cities you have seen and their rela­tion­ship with migran­ts?

This is a dif­fi­cult que­stion to answer, as I was only pre­sent in some of the cities for a mat­ter of weeks and I would not wish to make any swee­ping sta­te­men­ts. I can tell you what I obser­ved in each pla­ce.

When I arri­ved in Calais, the French poli­ce had just clea­ned out some of the camps and the refu­gees were disper­sed to other parts of Fran­ce, but they were tric­kling back. The­re was no camp accom­mo­da­tion for them, so they had taken to cam­ping in the woods and local parks around the city. I was wor­king with Care for Calais, whom I accom­pa­nied on their rounds, sup­por­ting the refu­gees with their day-to-day needs, inclu­ding por­ta­ble pho­ne char­ging.

Outsi­de Dun­kirk, one mayor had intro­du­ced an emer­gen­cy solu­tion to the hou­sing pro­blem by ope­ning a gym to the refu­gees. The local popu­la­tion were hel­ping by pro­vi­ding food and other neces­si­ties.

In Brus­sels, I visi­ted a camp next to the train sta­tion and I did not take any pho­tos on this occa­sion becau­se I sen­sed that my approach would be unwel­co­me – you must assess each situa­tion inde­pen­den­tly and listen to your gut as the­se envi­ron­men­ts can be qui­te unpre­dic­ta­ble. Eve­ryo­ne is living with a lot of stress and on that sum­mer day, tem­pe­ra­tu­res were in the region of 40 degrees cen­ti­gra­de and peo­ple were strug­gling to find relief from the debi­li­ta­ting heat. Care for Calais were the­re to hand out bot­tled water.

In Austria, peo­ple were not in tran­sit — rather they were try­ing to get their papers to remain in Austria. I was intro­du­ced to the refu­gees throu­gh a refu­gee NGO in Vien­na. Peo­ple were allo­wed to stu­dy but not to work, and the govern­ment pro­vi­ded Ger­man les­sons to asy­lum see­kers during the wai­ting period.

I sup­po­se the com­mon thread would be that the refu­gees are trea­ted by the sta­te as unwel­co­me outsi­ders, reliant on NGOs and the kind­ness of stran­gers – which exists eve­ry­whe­re – for sup­port.

Are the­re dif­fe­ren­ces bet­ween the coun­tries you visi­ted regar­ding refu­gee rights?

The area of refu­gee rights is very com­plex, varies from coun­try to coun­try in Euro­pe and is con­stan­tly chan­ging. It is almo­st impos­si­ble for a sin­gle indi­vi­dual not wor­king dai­ly within the field to be ful­ly infor­med and keep up to date. For this rea­son, when we were put­ting toge­ther the exhi­bi­tion-book for the “You can see me, but I don’t exi­st” pro­ject in the UK, we com­mis­sio­ned Woo­dren Bra­de, who is a poli­cy resear­cher for the Refu­gee Coun­cil, to wri­te the essay regar­ding cur­rent immi­gra­tion legi­sla­tion here.

As you are pro­ba­bly aware, the cur­rent govern­ment is hosti­le to immi­gra­tion and has intro­du­ced new puni­ti­ve legi­sla­tion. They are also try­ing to pass laws that would allow them to deport asy­lum see­kers who enter the UK via ille­gal rou­tes direc­tly to Rwan­da with no pos­si­bi­li­ty of return. The asy­lum-see­king pro­cess here is at cri­sis point with a bac­klog of thou­sands of unpro­ces­sed appli­ca­tions lea­ding to a refu­gee hou­sing cri­sis – it is this bot­tle­neck that has crea­ted the pro­blems rather than the new arri­vals by boat, who could have been accom­mo­da­ted if the bac­klog had been clea­red. Immi­gra­tion poli­cy is being dri­ven by poli­ti­cal agen­das rather than huma­ni­ta­rian and prac­ti­cal con­si­de­ra­tions.

How did you find and deci­de on the title of your pho­to­gra­phy exhi­bi­tion?

I work with a small crea­ti­ve team in my stu­dio and, whil­st deve­lo­ping the pro­ject and exhi­bi­tion book, Jen­ny (who speaks Swe­dish) remin­ded us of the words of a young Afghan man in his final year at school, who was see­king asy­lum in Swe­den: “Du kann se mig, men jag finns inte” — “You can see me, but I don’t exi­st.” The young man was awai­ting a respon­se to his third and final appeal for per­mis­sion to remain in the coun­try and was expres­sing fru­stra­tion at the way in which the asy­lum pro­cess had suspen­ded him for years in a no man’s land of enfor­ced sepa­ra­tion from Swe­dish socie­ty.

When we were making the work, taking pho­tos and spen­ding time in crea­ti­ve work­shops in Man­che­ster, Bir­min­gham, and Lon­don, col­la­bo­ra­ting with refu­gees, poe­ts, and com­mu­ni­ty deve­lo­p­ment wor­kers we found the title reso­na­ted with eve­ryo­ne, so we deci­ded to stick with it.

Una­ble to work, migran­ts and refu­gees may endu­re pover­ty and desti­tu­tion, poor phy­si­cal and men­tal health, and even dan­ger. Are the­re mea­su­res coun­tries can take to ease or sol­ve the­se pro­blems?

Again, this is a very com­plex area and poli­cy respon­ses would be sub­ject to local con­si­de­ra­tions. Howe­ver, the­re is a con­sen­sus across bor­ders, among NGOs and the refu­gees them­sel­ves, that the most impor­tant chan­ge would be to give asy­lum see­kers the right to work – this would redu­ce the like­li­hood of pover­ty and desti­tu­tion, con­tri­bu­te to the eco­no­my, alle­via­te hou­sing pro­blems, ini­tia­te inte­gra­tion from the start, and help refu­gees to main­tain their self-respect.

To this, I would add my own opi­nion which is that inte­gra­tion from an ear­ly sta­ge is essen­tial and for this the sta­te needs to find ways of incor­po­ra­ting asy­lum see­kers into their socie­ties from the outset. In the absen­ce of the right to work, pro­jec­ts such as ours and tho­se ini­tia­ted by local refu­gee orga­ni­za­tions, such as tho­se scat­te­red around cities in the UK, do much to build brid­ges bet­ween local com­mu­ni­ties and new arri­vals, as well as pro­vi­ding the refu­gees with acti­vi­ties. In con­tra­st, nega­ti­ve nar­ra­ti­ves ini­tia­ted by the sta­te, or the media (such as we have seen in the UK) crea­te bar­riers to inte­gra­tion and can stir up hosti­li­ty and even vio­len­ce.

Many western coun­tries have built a pro­tec­ti­ve cage for their inha­bi­tan­ts that fil­ters arri­vals from outsi­de. Could pho­to­gra­phy, and art in gene­ral, pro­mo­te a wel­co­ming cul­tu­re  and a new model of inte­gra­tion for refu­gees and migran­ts?

I think pho­to­gra­phy can rai­se aware­ness and alter per­cep­tions, the­re­by ope­ning minds.

The object of this pro­ject is to highlight the plight of peo­ple see­king asy­lum in Euro­pe by using the pin­ho­le came­ra con­cept. For the UK, I intro­du­ced a col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve aspect by invi­ting the refu­gees to have a voi­ce in the pro­ject throu­gh their poe­try and wri­ting.

For the UK, my stu­dio and I wan­ted to crea­te a publi­ca­tion tou­se in dif­fe­rent envi­ron­men­ts that could be read as a book, but also could be taken apart and exhi­bi­ted and then put back toge­ther. The book has been taken apart suc­ces­sful­ly and sho­wn in twel­ve libra­ries and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters in various loca­tions in the UK, and we are con­ti­nuing to speak to libra­ries and orga­ni­za­tions about our pro­ject. The esti­ma­ted num­ber of visi­tors to the exhi­bi­tions to date totals around 38,000 (a lar­ge num­ber of the­se were from the 2‑month exhi­bi­tion at the Libra­ry of Bir­min­gham).

We deli­be­ra­te­ly cho­se to exhi­bit in libra­ries and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters, as the­se are the pla­ces whe­re peo­ple in com­mu­ni­ties con­gre­ga­te. We also wan­ted to exhi­bit outsi­de Lon­don to reach parts of the coun­try whe­re inte­gra­tion has pro­ved more dif­fi­cult becau­se of pres­su­re on local resour­ces.

Pho­to­gra­phy has the abi­li­ty to cap­tu­re a moment in time at the cost of mis­sing the next. What lies beyond your sho­ts? What goes on right after the moment you pho­to­gra­ph the­se peo­ple? What was the fee­ling you got from having tho­se peo­ple and their clou­ded faces in front of you?

Whe­ne­ver I plan to pho­to­gra­ph someo­ne, I spend some time in the envi­ron­ment in which they find them­sel­ves (in this case the camps) and talk to them. I learn about their per­so­nal sto­ries, whe­re they have come from, whe­re their fami­lies are, what their jour­ney was like, how they are mana­ging in their dai­ly lives. Peo­ple are often sur­pri­sin­gly open, perhaps becau­se they feel a need to tell their sto­ries and express their hopes and fears, as this who­le pro­cess of tel­ling reminds them of who they are and why they are on their dif­fi­cult jour­ney. I always asked them whe­re they would like to be pho­to­gra­phed – I asked them to choo­se somewhe­re that makes them hap­py or whe­re a signi­fi­cant, posi­ti­ve event had taken pla­ce. Some cho­se the local church, whe­re they had found friend­ship and sup­port, one cho­se a park whe­re he regu­lar­ly played basket­ball, ano­ther the local foot­ball ground whe­re he played in the school team. Inte­re­stin­gly, they all cho­se pla­ces that gave them a sen­se of belon­ging.

For me, behind each clou­ded face the­re is an indi­vi­dual. I have always been con­cer­ned about the indi­vi­dual – mass media tends to pre­sent refu­gees as a group which allo­ws them to encou­ra­ge an atmo­sphe­re of hosti­li­ty. It is dif­fi­cult to disli­ke indi­vi­duals once you meet them and find out about them. In this case the blur­ry faces were inten­ded to draw atten­tion to the fact that we do not see the­se peo­ple as indi­vi­duals, we do not in fact “see” them at all.

On a more posi­ti­ve note, sin­ce taking the­se pho­tos I have heard that some of the peo­ple in them have recei­ved their papers and are now free to move on with their lives. Hea­ring about the­se peo­ple fills me with hope.