In Which Language Do We Dream?

I first met Rami in 2017, the year that he had arrived in the UK with his Ruba and their children. The family arrived in the UK from Lebanon, were they had lived in limbo following their forced displacement from Syria in 2012. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the outbreak of the ongoing crisis in Syria which has seen millions of Syrians forced from their homes and country.

I had arrived back in the UK with my own family in 2016, having been based in Palestine for many years. I eventually got married in Palestine and since 2016 I have been supporting my wife as she attempts to navigate through the UK's immigration minefield.

Rami and I seemed to share things in common and we soon became friends. Rami, Ruba and their children Mustapha, Yazan, Hanan and Rayan (born in the UK) welcomed me into their lives and our families became close. We also began a collaboration through photography that is now into its fifth year. Somewhere down the line I came to realise that through this work I was also exploring aspects of my own life.

'In Which language Do We Dream?' is a large collaborative and co-authored project that brings together my documentary work, re-worked family archive photographs that were rescued from Syria and, more recently, new images produced by the family themselves (mainly by Ruba) of their new lives. It explore's some of the challenges of displacement and resettlement and the complexities of identity, although at its heart this is a story of family and relationships.

*This entire body of work features photographs form a 17 year period, and also a film installation. 'In Which Language Do We Dream' will launch at Impressions Gallery, Bradford this year, curated by Anne Mcneill, and is supported by Arts Council England and Impressions Gallery.