Tag: photography

The Migration Museum presents exhibitions and events which explore themes of integration, migration, and the identities of the people who migrate from and to Britain. The range of their methods and activities vary greatly, from multi-disciplinary storytelling approaches, to the use of visual medias, such as film, photography, and performing arts, to more alternative ways of engaging with the public, such as their annual Imprints fundraising walks across London, in which the walkers can explore the migration history of the city. The Migration Museum has staged several successful exhibitions, such as: 100 Images of Migration, a collection of photographs which tell the story of migrants in the UK and what their experiences means to them; Call Me By My Name, a multimedia exhibition identifying the complexity of the migration crisis; and No Turning Back, an exploration several stories of migration which have changed the course of Britain’s history. The Migration Museum provides a vast range of educational programs as well, including workshops, teaching resources and partnerships. Their educational materials are based on the themes explored in exhibitions. All materials are downloadable and are provided across the UK to primary, secondary and university students. The Migration Museum aims to bring studies of migration to the school curriculum and to expand their audiences beyond BAME communities, migrants and refugees, reaching those of a lower socio-economic background and those with a less positive attitude towards migration.

The MoVE project was founded in 2013 by Elsa Oliveira and Jo Vearey at the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. MoVe is a repository for innovative visual and narrative research showcasing the subjective realities of migrants in southern Africa. MoVE’s approach seeks to incorporate social action and research by engaging migrant participants, local social movements and students in participatory work through photography, narrative writing, participatory theatre, and collages to produce research on migration. These participatory approaches encourage the narration of migrants’ lived experiences whereby the recording of each storytelling becomes an ‘artefact’ that can be shared with diverse audiences through MoVE. MoVE specifically includes innovative research that can facilitate increased insight into the complex lived experiences of migrants and communities and actively promotes partnerships created with inter-represented migrant communities. MoVE believes in the importance of participatory research to inform advocacy projects.

IM²MEDIATE is a research project investigating the dynamic interplay between media representations of recent non-EU immigrants in the EU, with specific emphasis on the situation of refugees and the governmental and societal (re)actionsto it. Within this large project funded by Belspo, our study engages with the experiences of refugees. Taking a voice-centered approach, we have worked with 44 participants of Syrian, Afghan, and Iraqi descent, who came to Belgium after 2015. The study included ethnographic conversations, focus group interviews, and visual workshops with photo elicitation and photovoice exercises. These different methods were used to elicit participants’ stories about their journeys and experiences, but also to explore their responses to mainstream visual representations of migration and refugees. Our analysis included an inquiry into negotiations of victimization in everyday life contexts, the meanings and difficulties of visual representations of suffering, and critiques of the Western gaze in media representations of migration. During a part of our study, we presented participants with a representative sample of mainstream representations of refugees and asked them to “give voice” to one or more of the persons being depicted. Some participants used this exercise to problematize the way in which refugees are portrayed and used this opportunity to address “all Belgians” or politicians. The images thus functioned as a helpful springboard to address broader issues related to migration, politics, and culture.

Researchers: Kevin Smets (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Jacinthe Mazzocchetti (Université catholique de Louvain), Lorraine Gerstmans (Université catholique de Louvain), Lien Mostmans (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Leen d’Haenens (KU Leuven)

Migrant Child Storytelling acknowledge that every child has a story to tell. Supported by the Rights and Opportunities Foundation, Migrant Child Storytelling gather and share stories submitted by migrant children from all around the world, whether in the form of pictures, photographs, video or text. It is a platform through which the child’s voice, too often ignored, can be heard, and the child’s vision of their world can be seen. The term ‘migrant’ is deliberately used in order to refer to all children who have been forced, or have chosen, to leave their home country for any reason, and who are trying to establish a life in another country. Anyone who is under the age of eighteen is welcome to submit material. If you are working with children under eighteen please encourage them to make use of this site. Guidelines for how to run a workshop with young people to gather materials is available here. The materials must be collected following UNICEF guidelines and with the consent of the child’s parents/caretakers if they are under 16.