Imagined Photo Archive, Ongoing.

An archive of ‘Imagined Photos’ collated during fieldwork with NGO communication staff at the border in Calais, France from 2018-2024. 

Through the archive I ask how the production of photography for humanitarian purposes can be reimagined to open the possibility for a new ‘ethics of seeing’ (Linfield, 2010, p60) as regards depictions of migration experiences.  

The project sits within a wider research project at the UK, French border which addressed pertinent questions relating to the creation and dissemination of photographs of migration by humanitarian organisations.  Such as, what images of migration are photographed, who is allowed to be seen & by whom?  Following this it makes the argument that the visualisations created do not activate in the viewer an understanding of the complexity of the individuals, their situation or the wider political context. 

Issues of visibility are interrogated further through the conceptual lens of the imagined photo series which, acts as a thought exercise.  It seeks to offer an alternative visualisation of a refugee through mental images.