Category: Arts and Creative

Chilean exile in the UK: music, memory and the making of futures

Posted on by Emily

By Simón Palominos Mandiola.

In 2023, Chileans worldwide marked the 50th anniversary of the 1973-1990 civilian-military dictatorship, which aimed to dismantle decades of progress in wealth redistribution, cultural development and democratisation in Chile. Alongside arrests, torture and murders, exile became a widespread repressive tactic, with over 200,000 individuals forced to leave, significantly altering migration patterns. This, combined with restricted immigration policies based on a narrative of national security, resulted in Chile experiencing a negative migration rate for the first time in the history of national records. Exile, a tragedy marked by state aggression, led to family separation and uncertainty in foreign lands.

The concept of exile, along with migration, understands individuals as bound within national borders, often portraying migrants as anomalies in their new societies. This prevailing national lens in social sciences introduces the epistemological bias of methodological nationalism, limiting interpretations of mobility. Scholars such as Nina Glick Schiller and others advocate for a transnational approach, highlighting the re-creation of societies of origin in new environments. Alternatively, John Urry proposes a focus on mobilities, prioritising movement over fixed points. Understanding migration within regimes of mobility that promote, force or hinder mobility, as described by Glick Schiller and Noel Salazar, acknowledges the power dynamics affecting movement. This mobility paradigm underscores politics, economics and culture in reshaping human migration. The arts, notably music, also significantly influence this phenomenon.

Thousands of Chileans found refuge in Latin American and European countries during the dictatorship. Musical artists such as Isabel and Ángel Parra, Patricio Manns, Quilapayún, Inti-Illimani and Illapu, among other members of the New Chilean Song movement, found asylum in countries such as France, Germany, Sweden and Italy. In these countries, solidarity movements emerged involving artists, activists and workers who collaborated with local trade unions, intellectuals and political parties. Drawing from Chilean culture, particularly music, poetry and gastronomy, this solidarity movement fostered a sense of belonging and garnered European support. The movement established an international network, facilitating artist circulation and making the Chilean political situation visible in Europe.

Promotional brochure for the Inti-Illimani concert in Bristol, 1984 (Source: Carmen Brauning personal archive)

During this time, around 3,000 Chilean refugees arrived in the United Kingdom. In October 2023, at the University of Bristol, we came together with three members of this Chilean community residing in the UK to explore how musical practice serves as an exercise of memory that shapes new futures. Language specialist Carmen Brauning and photographer Luis Bustamante shared the solidarity work they have carried out in Hull and Bristol since arriving in the UK in 1974 through a grant from the World University Service. In 1983 Carmen and Luis organised a concert in Bristol with the group Quilapayún and in 1984 another concert with the group Inti-Illimani.

The organisation of the concerts proved to be challenging due to the diverse experiences of mobility and political strategies of the Chilean community in Bristol. Despite the challenges, the events provided a way not only to keep a connection with Chile, but also, crucially, to portray the resilience of the community in the UK. Stefano Gavagnin et al. have suggested that these community organisations carry out supportive activities for other more crucial ones in the musical field, such as musical performance itself. However, I agree with Ignacio Rivera-Volosky that these organizations are part of musical, identity and political performance in both Chile and the UK. In this sense, the concerts in Bristol mark the end of what we can call the period of the ‘closed suitcase’, of the hope of a prompt return to Chile, and inaugurate the period of the ‘open suitcase’. From there, the Chilean community, now also British, had to face the challenge of their own uncertain future and that of their children in the UK with courage. To this day, Luis uses his camera to portray social movements in Europe and Latin America. Meanwhile, Carmen has taught at the University of Bristol, and she continues welcoming international students and inspiring future artists and researchers.

Another speaker at our event was Mauricio Venegas-Astorga. A musician inspired by the New Chilean Song movement, Mauricio arrived in the UK in 1977. He has collaborated with Chilean and British artists in groups such as Incantation and Alianza, and with British composer Richard Harvey and Australian guitarist John Williams, among others. Mauricio’s music blends Latin American and European folk influences, incorporating elements from the Western canon and electronic music. His compositions avoid essentialist portrayals of origin, focusing instead on narratives of movement and transformation. Thus, the artist’s work creates a new space in which the experience of exile, migration and identities – inhabited both in Chile and the UK – can coexist.

Poster for the sixth Voces Festival in 2023, organised by Quimantú (Source: Quimantú)

Since 1981 Mauricio has led the group Quimantú, which comprises members from Latin America and Europe. Through the group he fosters a diverse musical landscape and promotes cultural exchange through educational programmes and festivals. Examples of this are the Ethnic Contemporary Classical Orchestra (ECCO), composed of children and young people of various nationalities, and the Voces Festival, created to give space to Latin American artists living in the UK. Through the use of different musical languages and instrumentation, the work of Mauricio, Quimantú and ECCO contributes to erasing borders and creating a collective musical experience. Their work helps us imagine a society in which we recognize differences without building hierarchies. Earlier this year I recorded an interview with Mauricio, along with Quimantú members Laura Venegas-Rojas and Rachel Pantin, where we delve deeper into their mobile experience and the significance of their work. You can listen to our conversation here.

Carmen, Luis and Mauricio’s stories are just a few among many. Numerous individuals and organizations strive to preserve memory and address contemporary issues in Chile, the UK and beyond. Examples include the El Sueño Existe festival in Wales, the media outlet Alborada, Bordando por la Memoria project, and the Chile Solidarity Network. Their efforts illustrate how remembering reshapes the experiences of Chilean and British communities in the UK within the unequal mobility regime established by exile. Memory is not merely a transnational re-creation of Chile but a recognition of past and present experiences, shaping future narratives beyond exile. Through music, arts and culture, memory guides us in envisioning new futures.

Simón Palominos Mandiola is a PhD student at the Department of Music, University of Bristol and the MMB Early Career Representative. His research addresses the narratives, representations and performances of migrant music in Chile. Simón has previously written for the MMB Latin America blog on ‘The limits of interculturality: migration and cultural challenges in Chile‘.

Filmmaking from my father’s memories

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By Nariman Massoumi.

I never talked to my father about his experience of arriving in the UK until I made a film about it. Baba 1989 is about his memories of arrival following four years of separation from me, my mother and siblings. We left Iran as refugees in 1985 during the Iran–Iraq war and sought asylum here. My father could not get a visa and had to live in Germany for two years. Without the pretext of making a film, it would have been difficult for either of us to have a conversation on the subject. In the film he describes painful memories of trying to reintegrate into the family, our estrangement from him, the language barriers, lack of work and money, our dire living conditions and his inability to connect to anyone.

Film equipment can often be seen as a barrier to achieving intimacy with a subject. In producing films about one’s parents or family members, the reverse is often the case. When interviewing my father, the presence of the audio recording device introduced a witness, an imagined audience beyond the confines of my parents’ home that allowed him to recall memories of emotionally fraught past events to me for the first time through a performance for others – and for me to vicariously recall my own childhood memories of the same events (as a nine-year-old) through his recollection. He spoke mostly in English and in third person (‘my children’) and only intermittently slipping into second person (‘you’ or ‘your mum’). Perhaps the desire to distance himself from the events resulted in this shifting mode of address.

Still from Baba 1989 (image: author’s own)

My documentary film practice has explored my family’s personal experiences of migration, our resettlement in Britain and its relationship to the history of the Iranian diaspora, the Iranian revolution of 1979 and Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. Documentary filmmaking that engages the participation of a filmmaker’s own family or kin as central subject is what Michael Renov (2004) terms ‘domestic ethnography’. The reciprocity and interplay entailed by a close family tie by this mode of documentary filmmaking plays at the boundaries of self and other, filmmaker and subject in a unique way. A fragile balance exists between ethnographic exploration and an autobiographical pursuit for self-knowledge and cannot be strictly reduced to either. The filmmaker and subject’s intimate connection renders an outsider position difficult (if not impossible), and yet a degree of separation between subject and filmmaker is still retained.

For second generation migrant filmmakers like myself, a parent or grandparent embodies a particular cultural history of migration (Russell 1999) meaning domestic ethnography becomes ‘charged with anxieties about losing access to the parents’ past as a consequence of displacement’ (Berghahn 2013, p. 90). To that end, family photographs, home movies and videos become privileged cultural artefacts due to their role in articulating and mediating memories across generations offering evidence of people and places, kinship and continuity. You can see this in a wide range of films such as Italianamerican (Martin Scorsese, 1974), The Way to My Father’s Village (Richard Fung, 1988), History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige (Rea Tajiri, 1991) or I for India (Sandhya Suri, 2005). Family visual archives take on an increased significance for migrants who have experienced involuntary displacement where the continuities of family life and memory have been disrupted by social upheavals or where the range of available sources are scarcer, and susceptible to loss or obliteration. Yet as highly coded and selective forms of visual communication that focus on the ‘high points’ of family life, they are also unreliable records of family history, reasserting the image the family has of itself and its own unity in order to reinforce its own integration (Bourdieu 1990). Domestic ethnography therefore involves ‘memory-work’ (Kuhn 2002), a form of archaeological detective work to investigate the coded or hidden meanings of family photographs or home movies.

Memory-work takes on significance when engaging with visual archives of historical events I did not directly experience that still conjure up emotional ‘memories’. For example, Baba (2011), an earlier film I made about my father, centres on an iconic photograph of him and my uncle on their release from prison as political prisoners under the Shah’s military dictatorship in 1978 during the Iranian Revolution. The poster behind them is a socialist realist painting called Raising the Banner by the Russian painter Geli Korzhev (1925 – 2002), adopted by an Iranian Marxist guerrilla group. While the photograph was taken before my birth, it stirs up deep feelings in me and connects me to the historical moment through my relationship with the men photographed and what Marianne Hirsch (1997) terms ‘postmemory’ – an affiliative form of memory passed on between family generations ‘by means of the stories, images, and behaviours’ and through ‘imaginative investment and creation’ rather than direct experience. The photograph evokes the unrealised hopes and aspirations of a revolutionary generation, a ‘subjunctive nostalgia’ (Malek 2019), an imaginative reflection on what could have been. It is also shaped by knowledge of political defeat and what is not apparent in the photograph: my father’s incarceration, detention, experience of political violence and psychological trauma written on his body in the present.

Photograph of author’s father and uncle in Baba (2011) (image: author’s own)

In what she terms ‘intercultural cinema’ Laura Marks (2000) identifies a ‘haptic visuality’, a way of conveying cultural memory through a tactile and physical sensibility, which she sees as evident in the work of diasporic filmmakers responding to the gaps and silences in recorded history. In that sense, the investigation and disclosure of my family memories through domestic ethnography is not simply driven by a personal investigation or the anxiety of my parents’ histories being lost into oblivion. The privileging of migrant family memories has a wider political intention, as Berghahn argues, responding to ‘inequities of power and visibility’ through an ‘impassioned plea for the inclusion of memories of the marginalised and the pluralisation of the cultural memory of the host nation’ (2013, p. 116).

Nariman Massoumi is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at the Department of Film and Television, University of Bristol, and Co-ordinator of the MMB Research Challenge Representation, Belonging, Futures. His filmmaking practice and research centres on histories of colonialism and migration with a specific focus on the British/Iranian context through ethnographic and archive-based documentary film practices.

‘African Apocalypse’: the imperial violence behind today’s migration

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By Bridget Anderson.

‘What angers me most is he chased away our grandparents… and now we have no food. Every child we bring into the world suffers. They must leave to find work and food for us. Some kids never come home. We just get news of their death. So you can see why we are so angry with this man.’

As she says these words, Batoula Adamou points down to the grave beneath her of French colonial commander Paul Voulet, whose notorious 1899 invasion of what is now Niger was one of imperialism’s most violent episodes. This scene in the town of May Jirgui comes towards the end of ‘African Apocalypse’, a BBC documentary on colonial violence, which MMB was thrilled to host at the Arnolfini in July, in association with the University of Bristol’s Department of Film and Television and PARC along with Afrika Eye, and supported by Deputy Vice-Chancellor Judith Squires.

Batoula Adamou, resident of May Jirgui, in ‘African Apocalypse’ (Image: © LemKino Pictures 2020)

From the perspective of western policy makers, migration is almost always seen as a standalone issue, a case of force and freedom, push and pull. But for poor people in the global South migration is very often entangled with colonial histories and ongoing legacies that have bestowed vast inequalities and poverty.

‘African Apocalypse’ presents a journey by British-Nigerian poet-activist Femi Nylander across the Sahel of Niger in the footsteps of Captain Voulet. It soon becomes a People’s History of Colonialism as Nylander and director Rob Lemkin pass through town after town, village after village where residents, young and old, retain vivid collective memories of the day the ‘Whites’ came and the slaughter they brought, even though it was 120 years ago.

Our screening was the UK theatrical premiere of the Hausa language version of the film. As director Rob Lemkin explained in his live introduction to the film, this version was seen by more than eight million people in Niger and Nigeria when Kano-based Arewa 24 TV broadcast it every Sunday evening through February and March of 2022.

A powerful array of panellists, chaired by Peninah Achieng, included one of the film’s participants, Nigérien cineaste Amina Weira (live by Zoom from Niger’s capital Niamey), the noted filmmaker and scholar Imruh Bakari and one of the Colston Topplers and a member of #GladColstonsGone, Luke Wentworth. Luke’s account of Bristol’s history leading to a moment of upsurge found a telling connection with the Nigérien graveside anger that ends the film. The Colston statue stood as an insult to many in the local community for decades. By contrast, the grave of Voulet, which dominates the town square in May Jirgui, has produced bitter resentment among local residents for generations. In a pre-recorded conversation, May Jirgui Deputy Mayor Mahamane Salissou Issa told the Bristol audience how his town has been deprived of infrastructure since the colonial period.

A lively discussion followed the film screening, in which Ade Olaiya, a Member of the International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations and UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab Expert, spoke of the need for international civil society – including NGOs in the UK and Bristol – to support the people of Niger’s demands for reparations. He cited recent developments in the international reparations movement, including the launch in 2021 of the UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group on Afrikan Reparations and HR 40 in the USA. Rob Lemkin updated the audience on initiatives at the UN where the filmmakers have worked with the affected communities and lawyers to bring the matter to the attention of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth and Justice.

Abdelkader Mossi, secretary of the Collectif des Nigériens de la Diaspora (around a dozen Nigeriens had come from London for the premiere) spoke of how important it is for Nigeriens to see their history more widely known and recognised. He spoke about his organisation, which connects Nigeriens in Britain, France and across Europe. He emphasized the importance of the fierce resistance of Nigeriens to the 1899 invasion and his hopes that this may be the beginning of a new type of relationship with France and Europe. Mossi also spoke of the vital role the Nigerien diaspora in Britain and Europe has to play in influencing positive developments.

The screening took place shortly after a public protest in Bristol against the British government’s policy of deporting migrants to Rwanda. Several in the Arnolfini audience came on from that event. One was Alimamy Bangura, a Sierra Leonean refugee living in Manchester. Alimamy spoke of the deep impact the film made on him, and the importance of recognising colonial violence and domination as the essential precursor to today’s global problems of inequality. He is now working through his organisation RAPAR (Refugee and Asylum Participatory Action Research) to bring ‘African Apocalypse’ to Manchester later this year.

Bridget Anderson is Director of Migration Mobilities Bristol and Professor of Mobilities and Citizenship at the University of Bristol.

African Apocalypse filmmakers wish to acknowledge the support of BERTHA FOUNDATION.

The power of collaborative art in research for social change

Posted on by Emily

By Rebecca Yeo.

On Human Rights Day, 10th December 2021, a mural on the wall of Easton Community Centre was officially opened. It brings together and promotes messages from Deaf, Disabled and asylum-seeking people living in the Bristol area. The collaborative process of creating the mural is the latest in a series of projects facilitated by artist Andrew Bolton and myself, including work in Bolivia and in the UK. In this most recent project in Easton we specifically sought to bring together the Disabled people’s movement and people with experience of the UK immigration system, as well as to develop creative means of engagement during the pandemic.

‘Disability and migration: a mural for social change’, Easton Community Centre, Bristol, 2021 (image: Mark Simmons)

My research focuses on responses to disability and forced migration in the UK (Yeo, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021). Within this, I investigate and seek to reduce the barriers separating the asylum sector and the Disabled people’s movement – there is considerable overlap in the experiences of people in both. Many asylum seekers, for example, experience severe mental distress or have other impairments. However, with this mural we were not only working with asylum seekers who identify as Disabled but with a wider section of both groups to build an understanding of the similarities and differences in their experiences.  

The mural conveys key messages of the hopes and struggles faced by asylum seekers and Disabled citizens. Some people contributed images and others used words to explain what they wanted the world to understand. Andy, the mural artist, worked with each person to include elements of their ideas or images in the overall design. Some people helped to paint the mural background directly onto the wall. Others painted their contributions onto wooden boards, which were then varnished and fixed to the wall. Alongside the painting, each person was invited to contribute to a short film, explaining their messages in their own words.

This collaborative and creative research approach brought together people whose voices are rarely heard in the mainstream media. The images highlight that the asylum system itself is actively and deliberately disabling, but the mural also makes clear that these injustices are not inevitable. The top of the mural is divided into three rainbows: on the left, a colourful rainbow represents visions for how things could be; in the middle, the rainbow has more muted colours, representing things changing for better, or worse; and on the far right, a grey rainbow represents the worst injustices. 

At the start of the first rainbow, a chain of interconnected people provide help and solidarity to each other (left). However, the University of Bristol’s Student Disability and Accessibility Network explained how this chain of support has been made increasingly fragile through underfunding, and how responses to COVID have been pulling it apart.

Together with many other Disabled people, students expressed their relief when, during lockdown, university lectures along with many public events became accessible from home. They hoped that lockdown might increase empathy and commitment to long-term provision for people who need remote access. However, Lizzy Horn, a woman who has been largely housebound for the last 13 years described her frustration when, after the first lockdown, the need for remote access was again sidelined. She contributed this Haiku:

Gaze from my window,
The world moves on once again,
I am left behind.

Meanwhile, people seeking asylum described the disabling effects of government policy. Under the colourful rainbow, a group of people chat happily. But in the centre, under the fading rainbow, one man stands with his backpack after leaving a house (below). On the right, the same man is homeless, crouching in a bush. Without food, shelter or hope for the future, he explained that asylum policy had caused him to ‘lose [his] mind’. A uniformed officer and a suited man stand together ignoring the homeless man. These figures represent immigration officers and politicians as well as those in academia, local government and beyond who collude with the police and government policy rather than risk speaking out against injustice.

Three stages of homelessness

Above this, a series of cages hang from the sky bring together experiences of asylum seekers and Disabled citizens. People from both groups talked about feeling trapped and being unable to move on in their lives. In the first cage (right), under the muted rainbow, a wheelchair user is surrounded by confusing information from social and mainstream media. The socially constructed nature of the cage is highlighted by having a second image of the same wheelchair user under the brightly coloured rainbow, but this time sitting in a comfortable pagoda, able to engage with and contribute to the world (see cage image above).

The middle cage (below) contains a Deaf person with their arms out signing ‘Where?’ In front of the cage there is a hand with the words, ‘Where is the interpreter?’ This image from Lynn Stewart Taylor is the symbol for the campaign that she established in response to government failure to provide British Sign Language interpreters for public health announcements about COVID. As with many images in this mural, the image is also very relevant to a wider population: government announcements about the pandemic have routinely been provided only for English language speakers. The final cage holds a dead canary, evoking the historical practice of taking canaries into mines to warn of gas leaks. This mural warns that urgent action is needed to save lives. 

Next to the final cage there is a drawing of Kamil Ahmad, a Disabled asylum seeker who was murdered in Bristol in 2016. The image is repeated from his contribution to a mural in 2012 – it depicts him holding his head in despair at the injustices caused by the Home Office. The mural is dedicated to him, in a quest to build solidarity and prevent further injustices. 

The mural enabled participants to claim a space in a public setting and raise awareness of their experiences of marginalisation. The images and messages will also be submitted to the United Nations as part of this year’s shadow report from Deaf and Disabled people. The UN uses this report, alongside an official government submission, to assess how the UK is meeting its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. This is the first time that the experiences of asylum seekers have been included in the shadow report.

In these ways, this mural is intended not just to convey people’s experiences but also to contribute to change. The key message is that if we work together it is possible to build a better world and extend the colourful rainbow to include everyone. It calls for solidarity between the asylum sector, the Disabled people’s movement and allies – as one contributor put it, ‘togetherness is strength’.

Rebecca Yeo is an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School for Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol. Her research focuses on refining and promoting a social model of asylum as a means to transform responses to disability and forced migration in the UK.

All images by Rebecca Yeo and Andrew Bolton except where indicated.

Kept apart – couples and families separated by the UK immigration system

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By Katharine Charsley

In the wake of the report into the Windrush scandal, in which Commonwealth citizens legally resident in the UK for decades were wrongly treated as irregular migrants and denied basic rights, Secretary of State Priti Patel has announced her intention to work towards a ‘fair, humane, compassionate and outward-looking Home Office’, which treats individuals as ‘people not cases’. There has been no sign, however, that the government is considering changing the UK’s family immigration rules, which routinely separate British citizens and long-term residents from their loved ones. Since 2012, the need to demonstrate earnings above a minimum income (set higher than the pay of around 40% of the UK working population), sky-high visa fees and other costs, an increasingly complex application process, and not infrequent errors in decision making (half of immigration appeals are upheld) have meant tens of thousands of couples and families have been kept apart.

Toddler on the phone to her father (image by Michael Grieve)

Over the past few months, I have been working with Reunite Families UK (a campaigning and support organisation), other local academics interested in the issue (Helena Wray at the University of Exeter and Emma Agusita at the University of the West of England), and Rissa Mohabir from the specialist organisation Trauma Awareness, on a project exploring the impact of this separation on British people with non-UK partners and/or families. Rissa facilitated a safe listening project bringing together members of Reunite Families UK to talk about their experiences of negotiating the family immigration system and living with immigration-related separation.

Rissa is more used to working with refugees and so was struck by the level of trauma in evidence in the initial project workshop: ‘The depth of feelings and isolation compounded by the prolonged application process, highlighted lesser known trauma responses of the participants.’ As well as the emotional impact of not being able to be with their loved ones, parents grappled with combining long hours of work to meet the minimum income requirements together with enforced single parenthood and children traumatised by the absence of the other parent. The uncertainty of how long separation would last, or indeed whether they would ever be reunited, could be torturous. Many participants described significant tolls on their mental and physical health. When life situations became difficult – through bereavement, health crises or political events overseas necessitating relocation – the inflexibility of the family immigration system compounded difficulties and trauma.

Our work together was interrupted by the COVID-19 crisis, meaning that instead of a second face-to-face workshop the project had to move online. Family separation became an experience shared by many in the UK during lockdown, but for participants still going through the immigration system, coronavirus and lockdown amplified challenges and uncertainties as partners were affected by travel bans. Reunite Families UK members also reported increased anxiety about the impact of lost income and service closures on their prospects of reuniting.

From the outset of the project we envisioned it being a creative process, using a model of co-creating prose-poems (or ‘narrative prose’) developed by Trauma Awareness in previous work with refugee women. Participants in the workshop were asked to bring an object with them which spoke to them about their experiences of separation. In the workshop, describing the relevance of the objects (which included a rejection letter, phones and huggable items to fend off loneliness) became one of several exercises used to elicit words and images, which then formed the basis of our work together.

Rissa and I compiled participants’ words into evocative prose-poems and word art, individual case studies were then added to provide more sustained personal accounts, and we also added information on the family immigration process for those coming to the topic for the first time. An illustrator, Michael Grieve, brought his personal experience of his wife’s visa rejection to developing illustrations for the project. Some were literal – a rejection letter, hugging a pillow in the absence of their partner –  whilst others were more metaphorical  – the unpredictability and complexity of the immigration process represented by a maze or a Visa World pinball machine (can you make enough to avoid heartbreak and rejection?).

Visa World pinball (image by Michael Grieve)

At each stage, we worked with the original participants in a to-and-fro process of co-creation, which saw the results expand from our original vision of a few prose-poems with illustrations, to a full-colour e-book that we hope will both bring the issue to wider attention and provide a resource for those affected by it.

Reunite Families UK launched the book online amid their renewed campaign to scrap the Minimum Income Requirement. An open letter to Boris Johnson has gathered more than 1,000 signatures (add yours here) from affected families, gaining celebrity support from Joanna Lumley and Neville Southall (whose Twitter followers will have found the striking images from the book appearing on their feed this summer!).

With Parliament just returned from summer recess, Reunite is sending copies of the e-book to MPs. Priti Patel will be getting a printed copy. We hope that she will find time to read it so that the new, more ‘compassionate’ and ‘humane’ Home Office approach will include recognition of the plight of separated bi-national couples and families. With the end of the Brexit transition period looming the alternative is stark: failure to reform the family immigration system will see thousands more separated in future as the immigration rules are extended to UK-EU couples and families seeking the simple right to live together.

View the multimedia e-book here (available as an interactive flipbook, downloadable pdf, or accessible Word document) and a Policy Bristol briefing paper here. You can also read more about the Kept Apart project on the Brigstow Institute website.

Kept Apart: Webinar and Book Launch is being held on 14th September, 6.30-8pm – please register on the Eventbrite page.

With thanks to members of Reunite Families UK, the Kept Apart team (Rissa Mohabir, Caroline Coombs, Paige Ballmi, Helena Wray and Emma Agusita) and Michael Grieve (illustrator), and to the Brigstow Institute (University of Bristol) for funding the project.

Katharine Charsley is Professor of Migration Studies at the University of Bristol.

Workshop on image-making in migration research and campaigns

Posted on by Emily

By Nariman MassoumiPoster of Image-making workshop

The first event of MMB’s Imagination, Belonging, Futures Research Challenge took place on Tuesday 2 July at the Department of Film and Television, University of Bristol.

Focusing on the topic of ‘image-making in migration research and campaigns’, the aim of the workshop was to consider the uses of photographic images of refugees and asylum seekers in migration research and campaigning work, exploring problems and challenges as well as alternative approaches (photographic or otherwise) to the visual representation of migration and displacement.

Around 30 people participated in the workshop including migration researchers and academics, representatives from campaigns and NGOs, filmmakers, photographers, artists and activists. The workshop was split into three sessions and the event was chaired by Bridget Anderson, MMB Director and Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship.

Image of two Matses children on the screen, and Camilla Morelli speaking
Camilla Morelli speaks about her collaborative film-making with Matses youth

The first session consisted of panel presentations and discussion focusing particularly on ethical responsibilities, informed consent, collaborative and participatory practices and the processes involved in producing images. Camilla Morelli (Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Bristol) presented her fascinating animated film about the imagination of marginalised Matses youth and their desires to live in the city. This film was part of her British Academy funded collaborative project Indigenous Animations, which brings together indigenous artists, animators and Amazonian children and youth to co-produce animated films. Through their participation in the research and visualisation processes, the participants’ consent and agency in their own representation was embedded into the outcomes.

Often the ‘people in the pictures’ – those whose images are used in campaigning material – are not consulted in how they are represented or what their opinions are on the subject. This was an issue passionately taken up by Jess Crombie, a humanitarian communications consultant and Lecturer in documentary image making and ethics at London College of Communication. Jess presented on research she conducted on the image-making of Save the Children and other NGOs. She stressed the importance of involving often unheard voices and views of those photographed in the image-making process (one of the recommendations of her report) alongside adopting creative and collaborative practices and sensitive communication that respect human dignity.

But collaborative practices can also become an additional source of stress and responsibility for those already dealing with the mental and physical trauma of fleeing persecution, being displaced and coping with hostile and restrictive asylum systems and policies, as Vicky Canning pointed out in her presentation on activism and resistance in refugee rights research. Canning called for a more direct, less ambiguous language in migration research and the system violence experienced by refugees, especially women. Vicky displayed her Asylum Navigation Board, which aims to help people understand the multiple barriers and restrictions facing those navigating the asylum system.

The second session turned towards presentations from the local community, beginning with a moving photo story by Bnar Sardar, an Iraqi Kurdish photojournalist living and studying Bristol. Titled Two Religions, One Roof, the photographic series offered an intimate portrait of belonging and co-habitation between two displaced families (one Christian and one Sunni) in Kirkurk. Bnar fled Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991 and is one of the only women to have documented the violence and displacement in the region.

Image of Ruth Jacobs speaking and a refugee's photograph of Bristol on the screen
Ruth Jacobs shows images taken by refugees and asylum seekers in Bristol

Bnar recently took part in a community project in St. Pauls Darkrooms for refugee and asylum seekers – a short black and white photographic film course run by Ruth Jacobs from the Real Photography Company. Participants had the opportunity to take, develop and print photographs of Bristol. Ruth discussed the process involved and presented some of the images produced by the participants, which were exhibited at the Vestibules on College Green in June. The images presented a unique vision of the city through the poetic perspective of refugees.

St. Pauls Darkrooms is in the same building as Bristol Refugee Rights, a local asylum seeker and refugee support group. Ruth Soandro-Jones, Fundraising and Communications Manager for the organisation, followed with some important and candid reflections on the challenges of obtaining and using images of people seeking asylum while they are accessing support at BRR, especially in relation to fundraising requirements.

In the final session participants broke into groups to discuss a set of questions posed by organisers and raised by participants themselves in advance, and the issues discussed were brought together and categorised into key themes by Jacqueline Maingard (Reader in Film) in a short summary at the end.

The workshop had a dynamic, buzzing energy and a sense of urgency. A whole host of problems and challenges in the use of images in migration were brought forward and discussed. It appeared many participants were grappling with similar questions and challenges, despite coming from different sectors, perspectives and practices.

There was a desire amongst attendees to continue the discussion and consider the workshop as a launch for further activity and action. Watch this space!

Nariman Massoumi is the co-ordinator for the MMB Research Challenge, Imagination, Belonging, Futures.