© Liz Hingley

FRAMING MIGRATION WORKSHOP 2024

JOMEC, Cardiff. Room 1.07

Reframing Migration: Voices of Witness 

Photography has been used for humanitarian ends since its invention in the nineteenth century (see Sliwinski, 1999; Fehrenbach and Rodogno, 2015; Azoulay, 2019). However, the growth of digital media and the acceleration of technological transformation have opened new opportunities for the medium and those who use it as a tool for change. Photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind (see Viewbook - Into the Beyond, 2015) perfectly captures this conflicting interconnectedness between technological advancement, photography, spectatorship, and the stories constructed by images:   

 

We need different stories about different people in the world, told in different ways.… That means diversity of storytellers, diversity of media and discipline, diversity of perspective: telling people something new. Editorial photography is very good at confirming what people already know. Our task is to find a way to challenge what people know or think. Technology and the digital revolution have gifted us with so many more ways to do this and make photography more accessible, reaching more people in different places. 

 

We are inviting you to join us at an interdisciplinary workshop entitled ‘Framing Migration: Voices of Witness’, to be held on October 25th, 2024. This workshop is a collaborative project bringing together experts and practitioners working in the field of photography and human rights campaigns, including researchers, photographers, and NGO professionals, as well as individuals with lived experience such as refugees, conflict survivors, and victims of humanitarian disasters. The aim is to explore the ethical dimensions of photography and contemporary digital culture in relation to humanitarian and human rights campaigning. This is an opportunity for practitioners and scholars interested in the field of photographic history, activism networks, journalism, photography, media studies, human rights, humanitarianism, and visual culture to reflect on the challenges of listening, gathering, and producing visual materials from lived experiences of victim/witnesses/survivors. The workshop will showcase two rich panels of speakers, one addressing photographic value and function in relation to institutional practice, and the other addressing the ethical challenges of photography in contemporary humanitarianism.   

 

workshop PROGRAM

09:00 – 9:45 Registration and Coffee 

10.00 - 10.15 - Welcome Address (Anna Gormley & Nelly Ating) 

Panel 1 – What photographs do in Humanitarian and Human Rights Media (Anna Gormley) 

To answer what photographs can do or does, these set of speakers draw from a range of expertise in using or commissioning images for activism or advocacy purposes. The aim is to explore as well as interrogate the value of photographs and photography as a field, the genre of production in use, the historical use of photographs by institutions, archival resuscitation of images when credibility is challenged and how the photographed person see the image they are depicted in. Each speaker will contribute according to work and interest, providing practical insights that can be applied in the field.  

  • Value of photography 

  • Genre of photographs in use 

  • Historical use of photographs in media  

  • Archival activation of photography 

  • How the [photographed] sees themselves 

10:15 - 10:35 – Ivy Lahon, (Head of Creative Content & Stories, Save the Children, UK) 

10:35 – 11:55 – Voices Network Ambassador (The VOICES network is a collective of refugees and people seeking asylum. Together, they speak out about issues that affect them) 

11:55 – 12:15 - Discussion 

12:15 - 1:15 - Lunch Break  

Panel 2 - Addressing Photography and The Ethics of Contemporary Humanitarianism (Nelly Ating)  

To bear the burden of representation means photographs legitimize suffering. It brings visibility to events or atrocities from distant places. Such a burden has been the brunt of photography and the critical role of imaging in our society in a digital age. This panel contends for the utmost consideration of authorship, humanitarian marketing, the morality of the spectator, the importance of lived experience, and the ethical notion of care and institutional accountability. 

  • Legitimizing aid through images 

  • Fundraising and humanitarian marketing 

  • Application of care and accountability 

  • Who owns the right to authorship 

  • Who is allowed to tell the story  

  • Addressing the eyes and morality of the spectator 

1:15 -1:35 - Dr Sara de Jong (University of York and Co-Chair of the University of York Migration Network) 

1:35 – 1:55 - Liz Hingley, (Photographer, Anthropologist and founder of  The SIM Project).

1:55 -2:05 Break – Networking Session  

2:05 – 2:25 Sharon Sliwinski (Professor of Information & Media Studies at Western University in Canada)- ONLINE 

2.25 – 2.45 General Discussions 

2.45 - 3.15 Comfort Break  

3:15 – 3:55 – Keynote Speaker Ariella Aïsha Azoulay (Professor of Modern Culture and Media and the Department of Comparative Literature at Brown University) in conversation with Stuart Allan (Professor of Journalism and Communication, School of Journalism, Media and Culture).

 Q/A- 15 mins   

4.10 Workshop Ends

 

PAST EDITIONS

Framing Migration Workshop 2019

The new workshop format used offered a unique opportunity for early career researchers, thinkers, photographers & image-makers to come together with the support of industry professionals to share, debate and develop both their own personal projects and critical thinking around the theme, ‘Framing Migration’. 

The workshop theme was intentionally broad in the hope that we could together a diverse range of people working within this complex and diverse topic.  A wide range of projects were submitted and applicants were encouraged to approach the theme in new and innovative ways.  There was a particular focus on the following themes:

 1.    Activating archives 

2.    Collaboration & Co-production 

3.    Ethics and the aestheticisation of suffering

4.   Issues of voice and face in representation 

MENTORS were…

Daniel Garcia Castro

Daniel Castro Garcia is a UK based photographer/filmmaker. Concerned by the images coming from the Mediterranean Sea, he started the Foreigner project in May 2015, with the aim of contributing a more human and collaborative response to the visual landscape defining this European humanitarian crisis.

In January 2016 his book, “Foreigner: Migration into Europe 2015-2016”, was shortlisted for the Mack Books First Book Award and later self-published. The book was distributed internationally and received critical acclaim including a shortlist for the Paris Photo Aperture Foundation First Book Award 2016.

In January 2017, Daniel was named the winner of the British Journal of Photography International Photography Award 2017. This award resulted in the first solo showing of Foreigner in March 2017 at TJ Boulting Gallery in London, and has since been exhibited internationally.

In March 2017, Daniel was selected as a grantee by the Magnum Foundation Fund, and later, in October 2017, named as the recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund in Humanistic Photography. This support has enabled the continuation of his long-term, multi-media project, I Peri N’Tera. The study explores the impact of migration on unaccompanied minors arriving to Sicily, trafficked through Africa, Libya and the Mediterranean Sea.

Jess crombie

Jess Crombie is a humanitarian communications consultant, lecturer on documentary image making and ethics at London College of Communication, and is undertaking a PhD investigating power dynamics in INGO image making. While in her most recent role as Global Content Director at Save the Children UK Jess commissioned and co-authored The People in the Pictures, a ground breaking piece of research to ask those who feature in INGO content their opinions on both the process of sharing their stories and their final portrayal. The People in the Pictures: vital perspectives on Save the Children’s image making addresses. 

Richard Burton

Richard Burton is the Photographic Officer at Amnesty's International Secretariat in London. He oversees Amnesty’s global photography production, commissioning, producing and working with research staff to illustrate a broad spectrum of human rights focused projects. He has worked in the field of photography for over 15 years for a variety of clients, including Thomson Reuters, documenta, The Week, Associated Newspapers and The Royal Institute of British Architects.

VIdeo presentations

The morning kicked off with three fascinating presentations from our three mentors. We decided to record them and share here so that they can hopefully be useful to more of you who are working in this area but were unable to join us on the day. Here they are, feel free to share and spread the word that these can be accessed here:



 

2019 Framing migration participants

Lynn Atagaki

Anna Gormley

Sam Irvin

Jack Lewis

Matilda Velevitch

Alex Beldea

The Migrant Collectif

Esther Kersley

Sebastian Bustamante-Brauning

Luisa De La Conche Montes

Rebecca Melody

Sara Creta

contact:

instagram: framing_migration

Framingmigration@gmail.com