“…it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination — indeed, everything Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
Across the world refugees and migrants are seen without being truly seen. They are the subject of endless debate, the objects of rage or pity.
These are individuals and communities shrouded in a fog of discourse. They are portrayed either as victims or as perpetrators, as indicators of the failure of politics the failure of diplomacy and the failure of systems but never quite as human beings. We writers, politicians, populists, humanitarians even artists pretend to see them. And yet throughout all of this debate, individuals, are rarely seen or heard from. The first step to accepting their humanity is to recognize that up until now, we treat them as invisibles, grotesques, objects to be debated over.
Two years ago at the Loyola’s LUMA Gallery in Chicago, I exhibited a series of photographs examining the lives and resilience of the world’s displaced people.
Family from Mariupol, Ukraine now refugees in Spain
refugee girl from Ukraine learns spanish.
Ukraine refugee remembers her home destroyed
Arriving to Italy aboard an Italian Navy ship
Syrian families living beneath an abandoned shopping mall in Beirut.
Girl and her sister Za’atari Refugee Camp
On the border with Eritrea
A syrian refugee boy living in a tented settlement outside of Aqaba, Jordan. December 2013
47-year-old Fatimah’s husband fled ISIS and Deir ez-Zor, Syria bound for Germany. Her husband, an unskilled worker waits for her there. On about 1,000 Euro she made the entire trip to Greece with her two children. Now she is stranded on the border with Macedonia wondering about her fate. She has no money to call her husband but even in midst of her crisis there are other refugees who come to her aid. “My neighbours at the camp are in the same position as me,” she said. “But there is a family from Pakistan. They come almost everyday with a cellphone so that I can call my husband
My father was killed in Addis Ababa during the 2005 elections. I’ve lost my job as a construction worker and I’ve been sleeping on the street. I will go to Yemen or Saudi to work and send money to my family. I would rather die in the sea than to continue without hope. I want to be a man who provides for his family.
December 2013, A family from Homs, Syria has just crossed the border into Jordan.
