notes

the image here has given the title to the exhi­bi­tion — run­ning at the photographer’s gallery until the end of jan­u­ary — ‘open see’ is a ref­er­ence to the red felt pen anno­ta­tion to the pho­to­graph. ‘in the open see don’t have bor­ders’ is a trans­la­tion of the inscrip­tion, in ara­bic, on the door of the refrig­er­a­tor. the writer of the inscrip­tion, one of two afghani refugee — detainees, whose arms are shown in the pho­to­graph, one point­ing to the inscrip­tion. a more com­pre­hen­si­ble trans­la­tion of the inscrip­tion would be

“the sea of sad­ness has no shore”

this project has its ori­gins in the 2004 olympic games in greece, a cul­tural com­mis­sion for the event which has evolved into this ongo­ing documentation.

the two refugees, at the time of the pho­to­graph, were being held at a camp in lavrio, greece, 2005.

the award win­ning mag­num pho­tog­ra­pher, jim gold­berg, has based his pho­to­graphic career on the doc­u­men­ta­tion and por­trayal of the dis­pos­sessed, the out­side, and the unwanted, this exhi­bi­tion presents images of peo­ple who have trav­elled to europe to escape the rav­ages of war, poverty, and dis­ease in their home coun­tries in africa, the mid­dle east, and asia. the images here doc­u­ment their often hos­tile and bru­tal recep­tion as new euro­peans.

until 31st jan­u­ary (images in this post © jim gold­berg / mag­num photos)

the pho­tog­ra­phers’ gallery
16 — 18 ramil­lies street
lon­don w1f 7lw

open­ing times

mon: closed
tue, wed, sat: 11.00 — 18.00
thu & fri: 11.00 — 20.00
sun: 12.00 – 18.00