PYLOT met with Castro Garcia to discuss the vision of his inaugural photobook, and his future plans for the project.
At the Port of Catania in Sicily I witnessed two separate migrant and refugee landings and I was immediately impressed by the level of organisation and care shown by Italian authorities. In contrast to Lesbos, the Port of Catania had a very calm and effective system for processing people arriving in rescue boats, making sure all were safe and nourished. […] This calmness prevailed even during the HMS Bulwark rescue operation in June 2015 when 1,100 migrants were rescued by the British Navy during the night.
I analysed my Spanish passport in great detail and we found little traces in there that we wanted to bring through in the book that led to all of our typographic decisions. It’s a very natural and relaxed working relationship.When did the project start and how did it develop in the year you spent working on it?It started pretty much two years ago; in April of 2015, two boats capsized in the Mediterranean that had departed North Africa for Italy, and hundreds of people drowned. The media reaction to this is what I found so disconcerting. I had wanted to start a new project for a while and portraiture has been at the heart of my practice. This was a story that I had naturally strong feelings for because my parents came to the UK in the late 60’s. I felt that my family history, combined with my natural urge to take portraits, made this a good opportunity for me to go out and create a different type of photography about this crisis, to get more in-depth and detailed stories from people.
Tom and I have known each other our whole lives. I come from a film photography background and Tom comes from a graphic design background. A couple of years ago both of us got to a stage in our careers where we felt we wanted to have a little bit more control over the work that we were doing and we always used to bounce ideas off each other before we started working together. In that sense, the project started out with us debating the ideas and concepts that we wanted to try and portray. Equally we went into it completely blind, we had never done a project like this before so we are very much learning as we go along. Our skill sets complement one another nicely. I effectively take photos and Tom can package it up. When the project progressed into book form, Tom’s role increased in terms of the execution of the actual book, which was a major consideration for us because the whole idea was to create alternative information, and subsequently present it in a different way. This is why we eventually ended up with the passport idea for the book.
On my previous trips around Europe, the majority of refugee camps were masculine dominated environments. However, in Idomeni the presence of women and children was much more prominent. I was told by a member of Médecins Sans Frontières that up to 40% of the people in the camp were under the age of 12. The people that have made it to this town will not necessarily be deported, but nor can they move north.
Overall media representation has been quite unbalanced, in both directions, you have organisations that have demonised refugees and you have organisations that have sanctified refugees and I think that both options are unhelpful. There needs to be room for a really critical debate and analysis of a situation like this because it will affect all of us and not just during the years of active migration. It’s a change for European society, people are coming to live here and we need to have a more open and considered debate about the realities of this situation, rather than just dramatic headlines that aim to destabilise public opinion. The reactionary tone of much of the media’s response seemed highly irresponsible to us. The speed at which we consume news stories majorly affected the perception of the European Refugee crisis in particular, and it was our belief that a project like Foreigner could offer a more intimate and sobering account of it. We are not trying to take a moral high ground by any means, but we want to listen to people, engage with them, and make them a part of the project’s process.
I think it was harmful in the way it manipulated certain incidents for potential political swaying, and it was just an inaccurate representation of events at certain times. In particular, one of the things that majorly concerned us [the John Radcliffe Studio] was the type of vocabulary that was used to describe certain parts of this story over the last few years. Personally, my unrest was to do with the images more than anything – the mass crowd shots and violent scenes. Calais, for example, was always depicted by images of people climbing on the back of trucks. There is a far more complex reality to the story than the one that is generally presented by the media. I found it unbelievable that even though there are thousands of people arriving into Europe, so few media outlets thought that it would be worth asking an individual directly to put across a clear version of their story.
Tom came with me on the first trip, then the majority of trips I did with my producer, Jade Morris, and other trips I did by myself. Jade was pivotal in the whole project and book coming together. She comes from a film background, so this work was natural for her. She has been a complete unsung hero in all of this and the project is as much hers as it is Tom’s and mine. When we were traveling through the Balkans and Greece in November / December 2015 it was vital for me to be working with her. There were many tough moments, frightening and stressful situations, that we shared. I feel it is important for me to stress that this has been a genuine team effort.
I didn’t have any strong personal relationships with other photographers. There were a lot of very powerful photographs being taken, but I also felt that there were some ethical aspects of photography being compromised when I was out in the field. In places like Lesbos, where there could be twenty or thirty boats arriving on the beaches every day, there would be a mad scramble of photographers and camera crews, almost trying to get in the boats. It was very shocking, and the whole thing seemed so out of control. But there has also been some incredible photography work done on the subject.
I do feel that photographers could be a lot more careful about how their images are used. I think a good example of this is Nigel Farage’s misappropriation of an image on a poster during the UK’s EU referendum that depicted a queue of Syrian refugees walking through the Balkans, which had absolutely nothing to do with migration in the context he was using it. His suggestion was that the UK would be “flooded” and that British life would be affected negatively. There needs to be a degree of protection over the imagery and it can’t just be made so readily available to organisations to be misused.
In February 2016 a court in Lille approved the French government’s petition to clear the southern section of “The Jungle” camp in Calais. These images were taken as the work commenced on 1 March 2016. The French authorities claimed that 1,000 people were living in this section of the camp, but aid agencies suggest the number was much higher, with 3,455 inhabitants including 205 women and 651 children. Although the inhabitants were given warning of the clearance, many were moved by force. They were given the option to move into alternative container accommodation, or to claim asylum in France rather than the United Kingdom. A small group of activists joined some of the camp’s inhabitants in a sit down protest against the clearance. Twelve shelters were set ablaze in an act of symbolic defiance
Abraham, Calais, France, November 2015
I have been thinking a lot about that question recently. I have never considered myself a photojournalist and I have never considered myself an artist. I do consider myself a photographer and I think some of the images have more of a photojournalistic quality to them, some of them have a more artistic or considered approach to them, and there is valuable information in both approaches.
For me one of the most fundamental aspects of my work is that I genuinely consider the portraiture to be a collaboration. A lot of the time when I meet people my camera is in my bag, I am not walking around advertising the fact I am a photographer. It is more about getting to know someone. Sometimes you turn up, you meet someone – an old lady, an old man, or a young kid – and they are sitting on the floor somewhere. I am not interested in taking that picture. I would rather that individual perhaps stood up and walked with me for a few minutes and we find a new environment to take the photograph. Ultimately I found that there was a need to allow the people in this story to represent themselves and explore how they want to be seen. I don’t think anybody would like someone with a camera to run up to them and start photographing them without consent, especially if they are in a distressing situation. But if someone came over to you to explain what they are doing and what they want to do with the photograph, then the subject is more likely to present a stronger version of themselves. The images are not about pity. Our hope is that they transmit dignity and respect to the individuals and the situation they are in.
As to whether or not the distinction between art and photojournalism should exist, it is a wide and extensive debate. Ultimately yes, because the photojournalists I have met have very strict ethical codes of conduct. Photojournalism in itself is a craft that deserves deep respect. I feel that it is equally valid for art to be made on the subject of war and social issues. Picasso’s Guernica is a perfect example of an artist interpreting a situation and his work has only nourished man’s understanding of war in an enlightened and intelligent way. As long as the artist is well intentioned, and the work is not ego driven, then there should be room for layered and varied work to exist.
I really hope I can carry on with this work for as long as possible because I think that the project and the approach that we have had towards it can offer a really valid alternative to the general way the European migrant crisis is covered. Thanks to the Magnum Foundation Fund, I will be going back to Sicily where I will be working in a centre with unaccompanied minors. You never know where that can lead. I am going into a new, long-term body of work that will involve a lot of sacrifice but I’m ready for that. I’m committed to this work and refuse to give up.
Having had the opportunity to exhibit at the TJBoulting Gallery and produce our new publication, ‘Foreigner: Collected Writings 2017’ that we released in March, it all seems to be developing and growing quite naturally and I am really excited about that. It would be lovely to come back from Italy later this year with the chance to self-publish another volume of photographs about this subject. That’s the aim.
The small fishing island of Lampedusa is the southernmost island of Italy, and is in fact closer to Tunisia than Italy. Over the past decade it has become a primary European entry point for migrants and refugees coming from Africa and the Middle East.
All excerpts from Daniel Castro Garcia, Foreigner: Migration into Europe 2015-2016
