Enjoy Your Life.

On the Greek island of Leros, layered with histories of empire, a refugee camp now hosts people seeking asylum from Palestine, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan. I want to document daily life there and ask where they will go next?

Enjoy Your Life.

(From graffiti on one of the abandoned naval buildings on the island, done by a resident of the camp.)

On the tiny island of Leros, Greece, in the Southern Aegean Sea, lies a place with the history of a continent. It has seen occupation by Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, where Caesar was kidnapped and held captive just off the island, the Byzantine Empire, the Knights of St John, the Ottoman Empire, Italian rule, German rule during World War II, British administration after the war, and now modern Greece.

The story I am interested in is the meeting of these worlds and how the island is now host to a refugee camp that welcomes and manages people seeking asylum from places such as Palestine, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan. Some have faced war, instability due to climate change, or persecution.

With half the project complete, I aim to visit the camp and document the place, from everyday life and structures to the people that call it home. Where will they go next? And what do they see for their futures.

I would like to involve a writer who can help me with further research and help collect information from the people that work at the camp, the people seeking help, and hopefully the administration that oversees its operations.

I may also look into ways of making the work more than just a photographic project, calling on archival material, the collection of objects and artefacts from the island, and commissioning someone to help me construct three dimensional offerings as part of the final exhibition that I will in turn photograph, as I would like it to become a book.

Examples of these objects would be the very rudimentary bells that the sheep and goats of the island wear around their necks, and potential abstract sculptures of the parabolic mirror or listening wall that the Nazi and Italians used during the war to hear incoming Allied forces aircraft.

I would also like to use maps of the island to illustrate the close proximity of the camp to the residences of the island and how the camp is seen as a hotspot due to its bright lights, yet feels as though it is often not spoken about. Furthermore, I want to document the rusted fence lines on the island that have been slowly reclaimed by the sea air and create these incredible abstractions.

There is also scope to potentially work with the local theatre group and people from the camp to develop short video installations about parts of their lives or how they came to the camp. I am still workshopping this idea, but I believe it could add another powerful layer to the work.

Drawing influence from photographers like Taryn Simon, Sharon Lockhart, and Broomberg and Chanarin, I want this body of work to feel immersive and give a sense of place, and how paradise is often not always all it is made out to be.

All of this, along with the purchase of film and darkroom supplies, is what the grant will go towards. Paying for my time there, daily food, and fixer fees on the ground to make sure that our time at the camp is both respectful and fruitful.

I would like to spend two weeks in total on the island, with four days spent doing landscape pick ups that I may have missed last time, collecting or scanning archival work, and then the remaining ten days visiting the camp each day and talking to as many people as will be comfortable in sharing their story.