A current awareness blog produced on behalf of the MA Refugee Studies course at the University of East London (UEL). Please feel free to use this site and we welcome any comments or feedback that you may have.
An exhibition by the portrait photographer Rankin entitled From Congo with Love is currently featuring in a large exhibition being held at London's South Bank. The exhibition has been develope din conjunction with Oxfam and displays "images and stories exploring romantic love, love lost, mother's love and the kindness of strangers, as well as photos taken by Congolese villagers with Rankin's guidance, providing an extraordinary insight into their everyday life." There is also a book to accompany the exhibtion entitled `We Are Congo' which is available to purchase online.
The Photographers' Gallery 16 - 18 Ramillies Street London
W1F 7LW
16 October 2009 - 17 January 2010
Open See documents the experiences of people who travel from war torn, socially and economically devastated countries, to make new lives in Europe. They have left often violent, oppressive, poverty-stricken or AIDS ravaged communities, in search of stability and the promise of a better future. Originating from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, these ‘new Europeans’ have met violence and brutality as well as hope and liberation in their new homes.
Since 2003, Magnum photographer Jim Goldberg (b.1953, USA) has been photographing and collecting stories through a range of media: Polaroids, video, written text, ephemera, large and medium format photographs. The exhibition installation reflects his dynamic approach to documentary through dense displays of images, objects and text.
The Polaroids on show have often been defaced and written on by the people they portray. The words and images combine to tell intimate stories of past and present experiences. Faces and features are sometimes scratched out, coloured in, or marked in some way. Larger-scale colour photographs depicting landscapes from the subjects’ countries of origin appear both poetic and dystopic in equal measure. One image shows a young family walking along a sunlit road, while another is of a man standing on a vast rubbish tip holding a dead goat salvaged from the debris.
Part of an ongoing project by Goldberg, Open See confronts us with the realities of migration and the conditions for desiring escape.
This exhibition is presented in collaboration with Magnum Photos.
'Detained Lives' Campaign Launch Date: Thursday 29th January 2009
A launch event for London Detainee Support Group's research report, Detained Lives, on the human impact of indefinite detention.
Thursday 29 January 2009, 6.30-9.30pm
Human Rights Action Centre, Amnesty International UK, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA
Speakers include:
Alasdair McKenzie - Doughty Street Chambers
Alison Harvey - Director, Immigration Law Practitioners Association
Clifton Cameron - Published poet and ex-long-term detainee
Jerome Phelps - London Detainee Support Group
London Detainee Support Group will be launching their research report on the human impact of indefinite detention on 29 January 2009, at 6:30pm at the Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre in London.
Many people who cannot be deported are being detained for periods of years, yet there is very little wider awareness of the issue. The event will launch the 'Detained Lives' campaign, calling for the UK to adopt a maximum time limit on detention, in line with the rest of Europe.
Alasdair McKenzie of Doughty Street Chambers and Alison Harvey, Director of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, will be discussing the civil liberties implications of this policy and how voluntary groups and lawyers can work together to challenge it.
Published poet and ex-long-term detainee Clifton Cameron will be performing some of his most recent poetry about detention.
An exhibition will also mark 15 years of LDSG's work in Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres.
The report is based on 24 in-depth interviews with current detainees who have been held for more than a year. LDSG's research marks the first wide-ranging investigation of detainees' experiences of the UK's policy of indefinite detention of people who cannot be deported.
"When I think about the future, it's just a blank, a dark black page. I just think about it as if I'm doing a life sentence" - Liban from Somalia
"My friend, I feel that I'm locked in a room and the keys are lost. I'm disconnected from life." - Ahmed from Darfur
"When I was a (child) soldier, I see nasty injuries, people died, I see a lot of things but this is the first time I've felt... I think I've got something wrong with my mental". - Daniel from Ethiopia,
*Please RSVP by email to jerome@ldsg.org.uk if you would like to reserve a place.
This event is free and open to all members of the public.
See attached flyer for more information
London Detainee Support Group http://www.ldsg.org.uk Detained Lives http://www.detainedlives.org
Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain c1933 – 45
The Ben Uri Gallery, 108a Boundary Road, London, NW8 0RH, England 20 January – 19 April
This exhibition will survey more than 80 works by over 20 artists exiled to this country; those included will range from the more established Adler, Meidner, Schwittersand Uhlman to the less known Eisenmayer, Mayer-Marton and Frankfurther.The exhibition is held in conjunction with, and as part of, the Courtauld Institute’s new MA course led by Dr Shulamith Behr and Visiting Professor Sander Gilman of Emory University, Atlanta USA.
The Refugee Research Centre/UEL invite you to IN FLUX, the culmination of artist Marie Ange Bordas' Leverhulme Residency at UEL.
During her time at UEL, the artist has developed work around displacement and belonging through informal encounters with students and use of the Refugee Archive resources. She has also collaborated with Anita Fábos on her MA and undergraduate refugee modules, with the aim of stimulating students to challenge their assumptions about the research process and to encourage them to find new approaches to interact with people and explore concepts.
The event will open on December 10that 17:00in Matrix East when Marie Ange will show part of the artwork she produced, along with students' creative projects, and Anita Fábos will address the learning and teaching possibilities of this kind of collaboration for university programmes.
Throughout the week - 11th to the 17th of December- the creative projects produced by Anthropology of Refugees and Cultures of Exile students will be on display in the Library Foyer and the Refugee Archive, (from the 15th).
And on December 15th, Anita Fábos will give the lecture "Refugees as Actors" and, together with John Nassari, host a roundtable discussion on approaches to refugee-centred representation in the Main Lecture Theatre at BusinessSchool.
The Refugee Research Centre/UEL invite you to IN FLUX, the culmination of artist Marie Ange Bordas' Leverhulme Residency at UEL.
During her time at UEL, the artist has developed work around displacement and belonging through informal encounters with students and use of the Refugee Archive resources. She has also collaborated with Anita Fábos on her MA and undergraduate refugee modules, with the aim of stimulating students to challenge their assumptions about the research process and to encourage them to find new approaches to interact with people and explore concepts.
The event will open on December 10that 17:00in Matrix East when Marie Ange will show part of the artwork she produced, along with students' creative projects, and Anita Fábos will address the learning and teaching possibilities of this kind of collaboration for university programmes.
Throughout the week - 11th to the 17th of December- the creative projects produced by Anthropology of Refugees and Cultures of Exile students will be on display in the Library Foyer and the Refugee Archive, (from the 15th).
And on December 15th, Anita Fábos will give the lecture "Refugees as Actors" and, together with John Nassari, host a roundtable discussion on approaches to refugee-centred representation in the Main Lecture Theatre at Business School.
As Britain commemorated 200 years since the abolition of the slave trade, Panos produced an exhibition to reveal how human trafficking is a bitter reality for thousands of women, men and children in the UK today. Slave Britain artfully documents the ordinary lives and everyday locations caught up in trafficking and calls for an end to this illegal 21st century trade. The show is produced by Panos Pictures in partnership with Amnesty International, Anti-Slavery International, Eaves and UNICEF UK.
News from the Welcome to Your Library Email Newsletter:
London is the Place for Me To 24 Nov 2007 http://www.rivingtonplace.org/ London is the Place for Me looks at migration through photography and moving image. Organised by Iniva (Inst of International Visual Arts) and Autograph ABP to mark the launch of Rivington Place, it explores the presence of the many different diasporic communities living in Britain today. On 1 Nov there is a screening of short films by UK based artists who reflect on returning to their birth place while others explore the trials and tribulations of arrival by Britain's diverse migrant communities. Featuring work by Helena Appio, Inge Blackman, Nada Prjl and Alia Syed, followed by discussion.
