Refugees I spent all day in at the Migrant Res…

Refugees

I spent all day in at the Migrant Resource Centre today taking photos of 9 refugees who now live in Launceston. It’s for an exhibition that looks like it will be one of the main attractions of the Refugee Week festivities in October this year. And I think it’s amazing.

The whole project is to produce a series of large format portraits of refugees who are residing in Tasmania. The portraits will be accompanied by a professionally written story describing how each of the subjects came to be in Tasmania. The aim for this exhibition is to promote public knowledge of the people that are now becoming part of our communities.

My friend Benny came up from Hobart to do the interviewing and I sat in and asked questions where possible. Ben is a great interviewer, I am glad he went along with this project. I’m sure his kind and gentle manner helped in some of the revelations that a harsher interviewer probably would not have had a hope of receiving.

We had a very diverse range of people, more than I expected, from Sierra Leone to Ukraine to Vietnam to Chile, and more. .

I could tell you all about the amazing stories we heard, the despair, loss, anger and finally through to the happiness, excitement and relief. But that is what the exhibition is for, so I’ll let you know when it is going to be on.

I’ll hopefully post some stories here after the exhibition is finished for those who can not physically be here.