UNCERTAIN STATES Presents - PICS 2012 Photographic Images Changing Society
kennardphilipps kennardphillipps is a collaboration between Cat Phillipps and Peter Kennard working together since 2002 to produce art in response to the invasion of Iraq. It has evolved to confront power and war across the globe. The work is made for the street, the gallery, the web, newspapers & magazines, and to lead workshops that develop peoples’ skills and help them express their thoughts on what’s happening in the world through visual means. The work is made as a critical tool that connects to international movements for social and political change. We don’t see the work as separate to social and political movements that are confronting established political and economic systems. We see it as part of those movements, the visual arm of protest.
www.kennardphillipps.com
UNCERTAIN STATES Presents - PICS 2012 Photographic Images Changing Society
www.photovoice.org
www.photovoice.org
“Even when we have arguments, we keep our voices down so that the corridor remains calm and quiet. I think most people will do that.” Fola “There is no way you can go to your room unless through that corridor. It’s always there, when you come back. The kids, they like to play in that corridor. Sometimes you find them with all the doors open, all the doors up to the end. You can see them racing their bicycles, it’s nice for the kids because they don’t have any ground to race their bicycles, this is the racing course for them. It’s so nice when you find kids playing, very happy, and they don’t have any idea what’s going on.” Josephine “Basically it’s like a street, you’ve got no control over it, people might leave it dirty, might leave it clean, that’s the way it goes.” Anonymous “When I’m walking towards my room, there’s a wall with a door that’s not a door and that’s how I feel every time I’m in here. To me it’s a representation of my life. There is a door, but it’s not a door.” Anonymous “It looks calm, it looks quiet, it looks deserted, but definitely a lot going on in the rooms, a lot of pain, a lot of trouble, a lot of crises, going on in the rooms certainly, but everybody comes out, you wipe your face off, pretend as if everything is fine, walk the corridors…” Fola
Above: G8 Gleneagles, 2005 Right: Photo Op, 2005 Below: Know Your Enemy, 2005
New Bridges: experiences of seeking asylum in Ireland “This reminds me of when you are at school, or just traveling, passing by in a hotel, you stay in such a place where they have to know your room number. When I remember my home, I had no number, but this reminds me that I am in a temporary place where they know me by this number.” Norah
‘New Bridges’ is a collection of images and texts emerging from a four month participatory photography project with asylum seekers living in the ‘direct provision’ system in Ireland in 2010. There are around 6,000 people currently living in accommodation centres all over Ireland – in hotels, hostels, army barracks and holiday villages, waiting for their claims for asylum to be processed. Many of these people have escaped torture and persecution, or have run from dire poverty in order to attempt to create better lives for themselves and their families. Direct provision is the main system in Ireland which accommodates asylum seekers awaiting claims for refugee status. Established in 2000 as an emergency measure to deal with the increasing numbers of people seeking asylum at this time, the system was originally designed to accommodate people for up to six months while their claims were being processed. Twelve years later, it is still the main system in place, with almost half of its residents waiting in limbo for over three years, and many for longer: 6, 7, 8 years for some. Asylum seekers in Ireland are prohibited from accessing employment and third level education while awaiting claims. They are fed and housed through the direct provision system, and provided with an allowance of €19.10 per week per adult and €9.60 per child, an amount which has not changed since the system was set up in 2000.
direct provision system. The project sought to explore the everyday experiences of living in direct provision and seeking asylum in Ireland and to create images and understanding which look beyond the imposed label of ‘asylum seeker’, challenging the categories, assumptions and stereotypes that this label carries. All photographs and texts were created by the participants of the project. These photographs were chosen by the participants as part of an exhibition entitled ‘New Bridges’. The images and words are an acknowledgement of the attempt to bridge the cracks, both within the self and between the self and others, between people and places, between communities, between understandings, between loss and hope. It is through bridging the cracks that we can begin to move forward and create a better life, finding new places and ways of being, while acknowledging our roots and past experiences. Lodged in the work is an inherent awareness of both instability and hope in changing circumstances. The work is part of a doctoral research project, aiming to explore and to create a better understanding of asylum and direct provision in Ireland, based on the experiences of those living within this system. The work seeks to explore everyday individual experiences of living in direct provision and seeking asylum in Ireland through and with the voices of asylum seekers themselves, and to represent these experiences in ways which challenge categories, assumptions and stereotypes, allowing for multiplicity and complexity.
www.suileileparticipatoryphotography.blogspot.co.uk
The photographs and words emerged from a four-month collaboration in 2010 between Zoë O’Reilly and eight individuals seeking asylum in Ireland and living in the
www.uncertainstates.com
www.uncertainstates.com