During Refugee Week, please join us in the Cafe Bar and Bookshop at The Photographers’ Gallery to celebrate the publication of the “You can see me, but I don’t exist” exhibition-in-a-book.

“You can see me, but I don’t exist” is an exhibition of photography by Alan Gignoux and creative writing by people seeking refuge living in Birmingham, London, and Manchester.  Intended to be exhibited in libraries and schools, it is presented as a portable exhibition-in-a-book that can be delivered by post, dismantled, and displayed, and returned to book form afterwards.

The exhibition speaks powerfully to the extended periods of uncertainty refugee friends face whilst waiting to hear on their asylum cases, and the hostility asylum seekers face. The refugee voice and experience is made central in the poetry, in stark contrast to the photography where faces are blurred and unclear, a visual representation of how our policies and asylum system dehumanises and marginalises people, and the erosion of self many people feel.

From 6.30pm photographer Alan Gignoux will introduce a series of poetry readings by refugees who have contributed to the “You can see me, but I don’t exist” project. We will also hear from writing workshop leaders and poets Ambrose Musiyiwa, Laila Sumpton, and Malka al Haddad who will reflect on their experience of working with the refugee writers.

The readings will be followed by a performance of traditional Zimbabwean music and more celebrations and drinks in the bar.

The project and exhibition are sponsored by a National Lottery Project Grant awarded by Arts Council England.

Alan Gignoux is an award-winning documentary photographer and founder of Gignoux Photos, which produces documentary photography and film projects focussing on socio-political and environmental issues around the world.  Alan Gignoux has been committed to documenting the refugee experience for almost twenty years.  For his widely exhibited body of work, Homeland Lost (2003-5), he made portraits of displaced Palestinians in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and throughout the Middle East, juxtaposing them with photographs of their former houses or villages in Israel.  Additionally, since 2005 he has regularly visited the displaced Saharawi people in refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria to document the ways in which they have preserved their culture and community over decades in exile.

Ambrose Musiyiwa is a PhD researcher on a collaborative doctoral programme with the Drama Department at the University of Manchester and Community Arts Northwest (CAN). His research project ‘Listening to the voice of refugee artists’ examines the opportunities and challenges experienced by performance artists from refugee backgrounds in Britain. Ambrose has a background in the intersection between activism, migration and community action and coordinates Journeys in Translation, an international, volunteer-driven project translating Over Land, Over Sea: Poems for those seeking refuge (Five Leaves Publications, 2015) from English into other languages. Books he has edited include the anthologies, Poetry and Settled Status for All (CivicLeicester, 2022) and Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (CivicLeicester, 2020).

Laila Sumpton is a poet, editor, performer, and educator who works with schools, hospitals, museums, galleries and charities on a wide variety of poetry projects. She manages the Arts Council funded initiative Poetry Vs Colonialism – where poets work with museums, academics and schools to explore the British Empire and its legacy. She was recently the Keats House Poet in residence and has co – edited ‘Where We Find Ourselves’ an anthology from Global Majority writers published by Arachne Press. Laila has been commissioned by Tate Modern, the Tower of London and the Royal Free Hospital amongst others and published in numerous anthologies and magazines including Ambit and Modern Poetry in Translation.

Malka Al-Haddad is an Iraqi academic Women’s Rights activist and poet. She has an MA degree in Arabic Literature from Kufa University in Iraq. She is currently a graduate student at the University of Leicester where she is studying for a Master of Arts degree in the Politics of Conflict and Violence. Her debut poetry collection, Birds Without Sky: Poems from Exile, (Harriman House Ltd, 2018) was longlisted for the Leicester Book of the Year award in 2018. She has been involved with LSE in London Middle East Centre BRISMES Annual Conference in 2015.  Poetry editor of The Other Side of Hope magazine 2021,2022 and 2023, “The first literary magazine for refugees and migrants.”

Farai Nhakaniso is Co-Founder and Project Lead for Everything Human Rights, a community group offering a variety of services with the aim of promoting the wellbeing and integration of migrant ethnic minorities living in Wigan borough.  He was the coordinator for the photography and writing workshops with refugees in Manchester for the “You can see me, but I don’t exist” project.

Dallya Alhorri is Refugee Activity Coordinator at JRS, The Jesuit Refugee Service, an international Catholic organisation, at work in over 50 countries around the world with a mission to accompany, serve, and advocate for the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced persons.  She was the coordinator for the photography and writing workshops with refugees in London for the “You can see me, but I don’t exist” project.

Refugee poetry readers from Everything Human Rights and JRS.

Music by Everything Human Rights’ Kubatana Dance Group.