Ben Krewinkel's A Possible life is one of my favourite books on the uncertain migrant experience . The Mass of documentation overlaid with the personal is very familiar to anyore who has had any contact with less well-off migrants.
This is especially the case with asylum seekers; there is a constant stream of dealings with officialdom, a sea of letters, photocopies and correspondence with official agencies of all sorts; the kind of thing that Krewinkel lays out so intelligently in his book - or rather that the designer Annette Kouwenhoven lays out so intelligently and elegantly in her book.
Add to that the incredible stress and uncertainty of not having any definitive status and you can understand why Krewinkel's book is so very, very strong. It's multi-faceted and busy, but with an underlying and constant narrative that provides a backbone that is neither patronising nor rosey-eyed. Gualbert has made a choice and he is stuck with it, but it's a choice that he made without the trauma and duress of conflict, violence or loss. He's an economic refugee.
It's much more modest in scope, but I rate Krewinkel's book right up there with Jim Goldberg's Open See or Wendy Ewald's Towards a Promised Land project - the project isn't really about the book, but it does capture the disorientation and displacement the young refugee experiences.
The problem is why aren't there any photographic projects by refugees/asylum seekers that capture the tone of their experiences in quite such an expert way. Of course there are the PhotoVoice kind of projects, which have that engagement aspect and provide a visual outlet for young refugees, but these lack the sophistication of books such as Krewinkel's.
And even if there are people who have a sophisticated visual language, the sheer poverty, drudgery and stress of daily life preclude the possibility of producing a incisive and coherent body of work. If you're worrying about the Border Agency coming to take you away at 4am every morning because you've just turned 18 and that's the way the cookie crumbles in the UK, the likelihood of being intrigued by how to fold your book pages are minimal.
In the same way, I wonder why I couldn't think of more top-notch, innovative Nigerian photographers when I was doing the Innovative (not the best..) photographers thing a few weeks back.
I've mentioned several Nigerian novelists on this blog, I've touched on vernacular Nigerian photography, I've looked at a white South African photographing in Nigerian, but innovative Nigerian photographers - I'm not quite there.
I don't know - given the economics of both photography and Nigeria, I get the feeling that there might be some barriers to innovation in the country. I have often quoted How to write about Africa on this blog; as a lesson in How not to Write about Africa. But at the same time I do sometimes feel that the essay could also be titled How to Write About Africa.
I recently read a book called I do not come you by chance, by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani. It was about a man who got sucked into selling 419 scams around the world. How stereotypical can you get? Yet it had a vibrancy, urgency and ambivalence to it. It reminded me of when I shared a house with a Nigerian man (He was from a wealthy family - "In my country you'd be washing my dishes" ) who was constantly fielding calls from relatives trying to get him to middle-man their latest sugar deal, something he did, but hated. His ambivalence and the way he was torn between two worlds and twelve moralities was quite something to behold.
Similarly with the rest of the world. I touch on film from India, China and Africa, I've mentioned novelists with a Somalian, Dominican and Pakistani heritage, but not necessarily as much photography by domestic photographers as I would like. But from what I know about Somalia, I am making a guess that being innovative, inquisitive and celebrating the kind of liberal visual values that I am interested in, are going to be very difficult avenues to pursue in Somalia. Even if someone were to have the interest and passion in pursuing those kind of values in the photographic sphere.
But when it comes to writing, that's a different matter. Writing ties in with both written, oral and folk traidions. Which I suppose is why there are so many great writers who describe the immigrant experience in novels. And I feature them on this blog because they are there and I read their books and they are great. And they interest me much more than insipid books about the English middle classes and their tiresome neuroses. They have more vitality and energy and ideas.
But how about photography...
Well, how about photography? Sometimes one needs to take a broader approach that expands to wider cultural areas. Diversity is not an even playing field.
This is especially the case with asylum seekers; there is a constant stream of dealings with officialdom, a sea of letters, photocopies and correspondence with official agencies of all sorts; the kind of thing that Krewinkel lays out so intelligently in his book - or rather that the designer Annette Kouwenhoven lays out so intelligently and elegantly in her book.
Add to that the incredible stress and uncertainty of not having any definitive status and you can understand why Krewinkel's book is so very, very strong. It's multi-faceted and busy, but with an underlying and constant narrative that provides a backbone that is neither patronising nor rosey-eyed. Gualbert has made a choice and he is stuck with it, but it's a choice that he made without the trauma and duress of conflict, violence or loss. He's an economic refugee.
It's much more modest in scope, but I rate Krewinkel's book right up there with Jim Goldberg's Open See or Wendy Ewald's Towards a Promised Land project - the project isn't really about the book, but it does capture the disorientation and displacement the young refugee experiences.
The problem is why aren't there any photographic projects by refugees/asylum seekers that capture the tone of their experiences in quite such an expert way. Of course there are the PhotoVoice kind of projects, which have that engagement aspect and provide a visual outlet for young refugees, but these lack the sophistication of books such as Krewinkel's.
And even if there are people who have a sophisticated visual language, the sheer poverty, drudgery and stress of daily life preclude the possibility of producing a incisive and coherent body of work. If you're worrying about the Border Agency coming to take you away at 4am every morning because you've just turned 18 and that's the way the cookie crumbles in the UK, the likelihood of being intrigued by how to fold your book pages are minimal.
In the same way, I wonder why I couldn't think of more top-notch, innovative Nigerian photographers when I was doing the Innovative (not the best..) photographers thing a few weeks back.
I've mentioned several Nigerian novelists on this blog, I've touched on vernacular Nigerian photography, I've looked at a white South African photographing in Nigerian, but innovative Nigerian photographers - I'm not quite there.
I don't know - given the economics of both photography and Nigeria, I get the feeling that there might be some barriers to innovation in the country. I have often quoted How to write about Africa on this blog; as a lesson in How not to Write about Africa. But at the same time I do sometimes feel that the essay could also be titled How to Write About Africa.
I recently read a book called I do not come you by chance, by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani. It was about a man who got sucked into selling 419 scams around the world. How stereotypical can you get? Yet it had a vibrancy, urgency and ambivalence to it. It reminded me of when I shared a house with a Nigerian man (He was from a wealthy family - "In my country you'd be washing my dishes" ) who was constantly fielding calls from relatives trying to get him to middle-man their latest sugar deal, something he did, but hated. His ambivalence and the way he was torn between two worlds and twelve moralities was quite something to behold.
Similarly with the rest of the world. I touch on film from India, China and Africa, I've mentioned novelists with a Somalian, Dominican and Pakistani heritage, but not necessarily as much photography by domestic photographers as I would like. But from what I know about Somalia, I am making a guess that being innovative, inquisitive and celebrating the kind of liberal visual values that I am interested in, are going to be very difficult avenues to pursue in Somalia. Even if someone were to have the interest and passion in pursuing those kind of values in the photographic sphere.
But when it comes to writing, that's a different matter. Writing ties in with both written, oral and folk traidions. Which I suppose is why there are so many great writers who describe the immigrant experience in novels. And I feature them on this blog because they are there and I read their books and they are great. And they interest me much more than insipid books about the English middle classes and their tiresome neuroses. They have more vitality and energy and ideas.
But how about photography...
Well, how about photography? Sometimes one needs to take a broader approach that expands to wider cultural areas. Diversity is not an even playing field.