Portraits: Motaz, Latif & Haroon
// Refugee Council fundraiser
This series of portraits was created to emphasise the stories and voices of refugees in the UK, and the work of Refugee Council - an organisation trying to improve the rights, representation and support for refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. You can read the article, and the words of Motaz, Latif and Haroon here: https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/stories/were-trying-hard-to-break-down-the-barriers/ .
This was a self-initiated project that came about from a longer term set of work exploring UK media representation of Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Immigrants and Migrants and the biases of these representations, a topic on which I wrote my Undergraduate dissertation in 2021.*
These portraits have since been shared with Refugee Council and Motaz, Latif and Haroon, and are currently partnered with an Instagram fundraiser for Refugee Council, accessible here: https://www.instagram.com/linking/fundraiser?fundraiserid=1574605729854159&sourcename=SHARE_LINK
I originally had planned to create illustrations directly for my academic dissertation critiquing the representation of Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Immigrants and Migrants in the Daily Mail (2020-21), given that I was about to launch a free access page for the research, however given that this written work emphasised the importance of fore-fronting refugees' own voices/stories in the media I wanted to use this as an opportunity to focus upon creating portraits for a few refugees who had shared their stories in the media.
I created these portraits from this particular article (https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/stories/were-trying-hard-to-break-down-the-barriers/); having been drawn to the article by Motaz's words about the language used by the media to (mis)represent refugees: “One thing I don’t like about being a refugee is how the language used in the media can influence people’s opinion. I especially dislike phrases like ‘illegal immigrants’ – using this term for refugees associates them with a crime which drives a narrative of hate and encourages violence.” (Motaz, 18).
For direct donations to support the work of UK Refugee Council please visit: https://act.refugeecouncil.org.uk/donation/will-you-support-refugees-rebuild-their-lives-0