Photojournalism Hub March 2025 In Focus event at Riverside Studios will welcome uniquely experienced and talented photographers Janine Wiedel and Gabrielle Motola. Their presentations will guide us into the world of the documentary photo book from the point of view of visual anthropology and psychological and ethnocultural studies. The photographers’ works will be available during the evening – some for purchase and others for free (donations to Gabrielle Motola’s photographic bursary will be very welcome).
This event will be hosted by photojournalist Sabrina Merolla and Photojournalism Hub’s founder and director Cinzia D’Ambrosi. The talks will be followed by Q&As and time to socialise and mingle.
Janine Wiedel has been working as a documentary photographer and visual anthropologist since the late 1960s. From the Berkeley Riots and Black Panther Movement in California to the in-depth portrayal of the UK’s main historical protests since the 70s, she always fuelled a lifelong interest in movements and sub-cultures. Wiedel has persistently reworked her long-term projects, which have become prominent studies, books and exhibitions. She has published zines (Café Royal Books) and historical milestone books such as Vulcan’s Forge, dedicated to the West Midland Industries (1977-79). In-depth projects have focused on Irish Travellers, Baffin Island Inuits, UK Industries, Iran, Protest movements, Urban Squatting, Eco Warriors, the Rastafarian Community, and the Refugee Camps in Northern France. Currently, she is pulling together her book on the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (1983/84). It will soon be followed by a book dedicated to ‘St Agnes Place Squat’ (2003-06), a notorious street in South London squatted by a diverse range of people over 30 years and evicted in 2006. Web: https://archive.wiedel-photo-library.com/index Insta: @wiedelphoto
Gabrielle Motola is an award-winning photographer, writer, and photo therapist whose work blends emotional depth with perceptive realism. Her creative process often integrates with solo motorcycle travels leading to portraiture, street, and infrared landscape photography, exploring self-reflection, resilience, and the human connection. Her photo book, An Equal Difference (2016), is an ethno-photographic exploration of Iceland’s striking contrasts while examining gender dynamics following the 2008 financial crisis. Created over three years, the book centres on dialogues with individuals from diverse walks of life, including politicians, scientists, artists and educators. These conversations go beyond the surface to reveal the complexities of the Icelandic mindset, encouraging a reflection on identity, gender equality, and the societal norms that influence them. Through her workshops, Gabrielle brings a reflective approach, inspiring participants to realise their unique creative potential. www.anequaldifference.com www.gabriellemotola.com Gabrielle’s workshops bursary: www.gabriellemotola.com/learn/#bursary Insta: @anequaldifference & @gmotophotos
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Learn to work as a photographer, produce a portfolio and have your work published.
A photography course, visual narrative and portfolio development programme free for youth, residents of Hammersmith and Fulham, who have an interest in telling stories through photographs and developing skills and developing a visual portfolio through practical photography assignments, publishing own work, receiving mentorships. The workshops include practical assignments and guidance in developing personal projects leading to the development of a portfolio of visual work, which will assist in enhancing access to further education and employment, training opportunities . Participants will also receive one to one mentorship and portfolio advice and photography based visits. During the programme, you will produce photo magazines Youth Reporting Mag to be published online and distributed in print form, and at the end of the programme your work will be showcased at a public Photography Exhibition.
Photography course starting in November 2024.
What you will gain Our photo storytelling workshops are designed to provide reporting skills, writings, photo editing, photo book designing, video and audio reporting. The activities are a great opportunity for participants to gain practical experience through assignments, personal projects, receive peer support and develop connections with like minded people. Furthermore, participants will gain a portfolio of visual work which is a key for entering further education in the media and arts industry and/or for gaining work opportunities. Our programme allows participants to express their views, gain confidence and form meaningful relationships with fellow participants as well as be equipped with empowering tools to enter the media industry.
Who can apply Workshops are suitable for youths (16-25 years old), living in Hammersmith and Fulham with an interest in photography, and the creative arts. No previous experience is required. Camera equipment is available for those that don’t own a camera.
How to apply You can apply by registering by emailing us : admin@photojournalismhub.org or call us: 07960940766.
The project is kindly supported by the NHS Trust West London.
We are thrilled to introduce award-winning photographers Anselm Ebulue and Mark Chapman at the In Focus event on the 25th of September. Both photographers bring a unique perspective to the photographic medium, transitioning from deeply personal, introspective, visceral stories on loss and mourning to powerful, straightforward documentary photography.
Anselm Ebulue is a documentary photographer based in London. He was a winner in the 2018 and 2020 Portrait of Britain award and was awarded a scholarship for the LCC x Magnum Documentary Photography Short Course. He has recently graduated from the MA Photojournalism and Documentary course at UAL. His work has been published in a variety of publications and clients include The Guardian and Observer, The Modern House, Time Out Magazine and Red Bull.
Anselm will be presenting ‘Whims of the Rye’ which is an ongoing documentary series exploring Ebulue’s personal relationship with Peckham, in south east London. Ebulue’s approach is visceral, making pictures of mundane spaces that resonate with his emotive reactions where memory and change intersect. The work expresses a sense of loss, mourning the transformation of an area in a state of rapid flux that is most clearly evidenced by its gentrification. Ebulue is particularly interested in the relationship Black communities have with Peckham and through documentation, hopes to highlight the significance of the area to the Black diaspora. Whims of the Rye serves as both a celebration and preservation of the Black communities who have called Peckham home for many decades.
Mark Chapman is an award-winning photographer and film-maker based in Gateshead, North East England and London. His moving-image work has been screened internationally across narrative, documentary and experimental contexts. Chapman’s debut photobook ‘God’s Promises Mean Everything’ explores isolation and displacement via a long-term study of a hostel resident from Teesside. The book was published by internationally renowned Dewi Lewis Publishing and launched during Photo London at Somerset House in May 2024. Mark will be speaking about ‘God’s Promises Mean Everything’, an immersive long-term character portrait that extends over seven years, but limits its perspective to a single room. Haunted by the spectre of the family he lost, Derek, a hostel resident from Teesside lives without the social safety nets many of us take for granted. Mark was given unique access to document Derek’s life over several years and the project seeks to elevate a working class story that would otherwise go unacknowledged. The images are an inseparable mix of the self-aware and spontaneous, candid and constructed. Seeking to explore the boundaries between filmmaking and photography practice, I want to tell urgent contemporary stories that are also rigorous aesthetic constructions. However, my aim is not straightforward realism, but rather to transform. My work moves between naturalism and expressiveness, altering the shape of the real world into something disturbing and mysterious. This is now the third project in which Derek has appeared (across film and photography): his unifying presence creates a constellation of individual projects across disciplines that have now become an open-ended archive of experience. The Dewi Lewis Publishing website: https://www.dewilewis.com/products/gods-promises-mean-everything
December 2023, Mediterranean sea. People onboard an overcrowded rubberboat drifting in the central Mediterranean sea have been found by the rescue crew of the Sea-Watch 5, at sunset on Christmas Eve.
The history of migration across the Mediterranean goes back thousands of years. In recent years, tens of thousands of people have crossed the Mediterranean by boat from North Africa and Turkey to seek asylum or to migrate to Europe. The central Mediterranean Sea is the Europe’s deadliest frontier. In 2014 and 2015, about 320,000 people crossed the sea from North Africa to Europe, mainly ending up in Italy and Malta. The next year, the vast majority of migrants crossing to Europe did so in the Eastern Mediterranean, landing on Greek islands close to the Turkish coast. Altogether, however, the most dangerous route is still in the central Mediterranean where distances are longer and the weather more unpredictable.
In 2023 alone, at least 3,129 men, women and children trying to cross into Europe were reported missing or dead at sea – an average of 8 people per day. This makes 2023 the deadliest since 2017. While Libya remains the main point of departure, during 2023 the number of boats leaving from Tunisia have increased dramatically. The majority of migrants are being smuggled by human traffickers who charge thousands of euros for a vague promise to take migrants to the closest EU territory. Most of these migrants are subject to serious abuse prior to their departure and there’s no guarantees of ever making it to Europe.
Fenruary 2021, Medieterranean sea. People onboard an overcrowded rubberboat drifting in the night through the central Mediterranean sea have been found by the rescue crew of the Sea-Watch 3. The rescue operation was carried out in the darkness.
Since 2014 around 30,000 migrants have been confirmed dead at sea but the reality is that many more attempt the crossing and lose their lives without ever being found. With legal pathways to gaining entry to the EU not an option for most refugees detained in or transiting through Libya or Tunisia, risking their lives at sea is the only way out the country.
The stories of those who make it to Europe mostly have a similar theme. In the places where they were waiting for passage to Europe they were often working for no money, being kidnapped for ransom and facing horrendous violence, murders, forced eviction, destruction of property, detention and arbitrary arrests, even if they were on their way back to their country of origin. Thousands of migrants find themselves in an impossible situation. Either they endure abuse in the transit countries or risk the journey to Europe.
December 2023, Mediterranean sea. RHIB crew of the Sea-Watch 5 during a training. The RHIB crew has the task to perform first approach and provide the first rescue to the peole in distress at sea, transferring them from their boats on the morhter ship. Trainings are frequent, intense, and cover almost all possible real scenarios that could occur during a critical rescue.
‘Libya is so hard for us. We are stuck. We can’t move on and we can’t travel back where we came from. That’s why we take the risk and cross the sea. This journey is the journey of life or death. A journey of no return’ says one of the lucky ones who was rescued by a boat chartered by Sea Watch, an NGO that patrols the Mediterranean and assists migrant boats in distress.
The accounts of the ‘journey of life or death’ told by so many survivors are equally harrowing. Overcrowded and unseaworthy boats, no food or water for days, struggling people driven to despair by exhaustion, dehydration and extreme temperatures combine with the gravest discomfort in cramped decks, sea sickness, storms and other adverse weather to test even the strongest-willed. Most journeys cover a distance of between 400 and 500 km to Italian and Maltese shores. SOS calls are systematically bounced between various European authorities and coast guards often resulting in them being ignored or actioned after an agonising wait. Many boats capsize or sink before rescue craft make their way to the scene.
Through the most recent deals with Libya and Tunisia, the EU has increasingly trained, financed and strengthen the unofficial coast-guards of the northern African countries to reach as many boats as possible. The unscrupulous so-called Libyan coast guard and Tunisian authorities unlawfully bring the migrants back to the place of abuse they had escaped from. Libya, a country that has been in a state of de facto civil war since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, is officially deemed ‘unsafe’ by international law, and interceptions violate the fundamental human right of non refoulement. Only 5% of the migrants leaving the North African coasts reach Italian or Maltese territory independently. The vast majority are rescued by the Italian coast guard and non- profits operating their own rescue missions to try and prevent more deaths.
‘They use Black people [people] to make money there. So if you don’t have the money you will have to die there or live in pain’ recalls another person rescued by a patrol boat in the Mediterranean. ‘The life in Libya is very tough, it’s by God’s grace that I’m still alive today. Because sometimes you go to work, you work with them and maybe they don’t want to pay you: they can take your life there.’
Non-governmental organisations carrying out search and rescue (SAR) operations have been a constant presence in the Mediterranean since 2014, seeking to fill the void left by the lack of state-organised SAR operations. The European Union, and especially Italy, are increasingly implementing stricter migration policies, essentially criminalising NGOs carrying out SAR activities.
February 2021, Mediterranean sea. Migrant rubber boat after its passengers have been brought to safety onboard the Sea-Watch 3. Between 70 and 80 people were crossing the sea on the overcrowded rubber boat, with limited water, gasoline, no gps nor satellite connection, no food and at risk of sinking for deflation or capsize.
After systematic cases of arbitrary seizures of the rescue ships and prosecution of crews, the recent practice of assigning distant ports for disembarkation, for example, keeps rescue ships away for days from the search and rescue area in the central Mediterranean where most of the emergencies occur. Despite the challenges, a number of non-profit organisations, such as Sea-Watch portrayed in this work, continue their tireless search and rescue activities at sea, in solidarity with the most criminalised: the people fleeing in search of a safer future.
Selene Magnolia Gattiis an Italian award-winning IFJ, NUJ freelance photojournalist based in Northern Italy and Berlin. Her work spans multiple issues, including questions of environmental and social justice, food production, migration, as well as gender related and contemporary political issues. She works on assignment and independent projects. Since 2023 she is represented and distributed by Panos Pictures. Raised in the Italian Dolomites, where she developed a strong bond to the natural environment, she has a background as emergency nurse, volunteer medical personnel in humanitarian crises, and academically qualified linguist, before shifting to and studying photojournalism. She has worked for a number of publications such as Der Spiegel, The Guardian, de Volkskrant, Il Reportage, Il Manifesto, amongst others. She also works for some of the leading environmental media agencies and a number of international no profits. Some of her photographic work on intensive food production is featured in the book ‘Hidden – Animals in the Anthropocene’, awarded ‘Photography Book of the Year’ by POY (2021). Her long-term project Zor, which portrays life in the biggest so-called ghetto in Europe, was exhibited at Perpignan’s Visa Pour L’Image photojournalism festival 2022. Her work was recognised by British Journal of Photography (2023), Siena Photography Awards (2022), London Photography Awards (2022), Prix de la Photographie Paris (2022), TIFA, MIFA, BIFA (2022), Kolga Tbilisi (2022), Global Billboard Project (2021), among other winning entries. She was selected for the Hamburg Portfolio Review in 2023. In 2023, she is the yearly Senior Fellow of WeAnimals Media Agency and a recipient of the European Environmental Journalism Fund grant for an ongoing project about the impact of factory farming.
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We are honoured to present renowned and award winning photographers Mariusz Smiejek and Roland Ramanan to the In Focus event on the 3rd of June. Both photographers’ long term work are deeply rooted in the documentary photography tradition presenting social justice issues combined with strong visual narratives.
Mariusz Śmiejek is an independent photographer, visual storyteller, and educator with over 20 years of experience specializing in capturing the raw narratives of human and social conditions. Renowned for documenting a wide range of subjects including post-conflict communities, refugee crises, child slavery, human trafficking, and systemic abuse. Recipient of prestigious awards in international photography competitions, his work has been exhibited globally and featured in renowned publications globally including The New York Times, National Geographic, and the British Journal of Photography, among many others. www.mariuszsmiejek.com
Not Surrendering tells a visual story specifically about the struggle of loyalists to shape a distinct identity in post-conflict Northern Ireland. The documentary narrative introduces us to the daily lives of the local British working-class as well as members of its illegal paramilitary groups. Recognised as terrorist organizations until recently, these associations still carry weight, sow fear, and control Northern Ireland’s Ulster. By focusing on the spaces which the book’s subjects inhabit, aspects of their daily lives, and the particularities of their neighbourhoods separated by ominous ‘peace walls,’ the photography brings to the fore the psychological state of siege which permeates working-class districts in Northern Ireland. The story also spotlights the atmosphere of despair which accompanies each successive generation – trapped socially and mentally in unprocessed traumas from which it cannot escape. The aim of the Not Surrendering is to increase awareness and knowledge about processes of reconciliation in post-conflict societies that are divided territorially, politically, nationally, and religiously. The story this volume highlights the difficulties NGO and other grassroots projects face while working with difficult youth from families deeply involved in the conflict. The photographic images illustrate the tensions arising during celebrations of national identity, during which especially members of paramilitary groups openly fan the flames of hatred towards their neighbours. This directly affects the indoctrination of the youngest who actively participate in numerous events of this type, leading often to recruitment of young people into paramilitary associations or organised criminal groups. This has been a personal, individual project from the very beginning to the end (2010-2020); partly supported at the very end stage by Artists Emergency Programme grant from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and The National Lottery.
Roland Ramanan is a London based documentary photographer, born in 1966 with a background in music and education. He developed a passion for photography around 2010, initially through street photography. In 2012 he started a long term documentary project on a vulnerable group of people who gravitate towards a corner of east London called Gillett Square which is to be published by Dewi Lewis as the book “Dominoes”. This work has been featured in Vice magazine among others and has won various awards including being shortlisted for the Royal Photographic Society documentary awards 2023. In 2022 he was one of the finalists in the Portrait of Britain awards. Roland’s current project focuses on the London roller skate scene and its relationship to black culture. https://rolandramanan.com/
Dominoes is a unique and vibrant mosaic of the lives that float in and around a particular corner of Hackney in London’s East End. The book is populated by intimate pictures of people who have experienced addiction and pain as well as the deep joys of the community of which they are a part. Gillett Square was derelict and underdeveloped for years until, in the 1990s it became an experiment in urban regeneration. Like the Dominoes they play in the square, those lives are often precarious. For ten years from 2012 I was privileged to be allowed into the lives and homes of some of those I have met, to photograph their fights and struggles; their families and their lovers. Some of these people are now my friends and some are no longer with us. The participants I am closest to form the heart of the book and I’m sure that bond will continue. The work gives us honest glimpses into lives that we may often turn away from but always with a sense of hope. Dominoes touches on universal themes of love, death, hope and the evolution of urban communities.
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After years of documenting the lives of individuals in insecure housing in London, a clear pattern emerges: a significant portion of this demographic comprises single mothers in either no or low-paid employment. This raises the pressing question: why are so many women and their children being failed so profoundly?
Melissa fled domestic violence, seeking refuge far from her former home. However, living in a shipping container with her three young children has aggravated her depression and anxiety, failing to provide the safety and comfort she desperately needs.
Since 2006, Francesca recounts: “I have been evicted 3 times. The first time, I was living in a private rented accommodation through Hammersmith and Fulham council. I was living with my two children and expecting a third child when I was handed over an eviction notice. I was made homeless and then the council offered me a home in East London. My only financial support was my work as a mobile hairdresser and my clients, my children’s school and everyone I could ask any support to, is living in West London, however I had no where to go. I checked the place and it was rife with crime and I did not want my children to live there so I refused. Then they looked for a place for me in the private rented sector. I was told to go to Ealing Housing Team and at first they sent me to Willesden Green to live in one room. We had to move out and had to rent a storage for all my things. I could not live there with the children going to school miles away. Everyday they were late at school and getting detention so I went back to the council and told them of these challenges and that was when I was allocated a container flat in Meath Court in west London.”
Francesca and her three young children have been evicted many times before being moved to Meath Court.
Francesca has 3 children who in their entire lives have only lived in temporary accommodations. Living in the shipping containers is very difficult with no space for any privacy. One of the children, who has asthma, sleeps in the kitchen. On the very first day they moved into the container, he had an asthmatic attack.
Families that live in the containers report their shock when they first arrived at the site, some at first not realising that the shipping containers were to become their homes.
“How could it be humanly possible that containers could be offered as homes?”
Nathalie Bangama, from Congo, with three children, moved to Meath Court after a fire destroyed her home last year. Despite living in Ealing for over 15 years, she was shocked to be offered shipping containers as housing instead of promised flats. She couldn’t believe it, knowing even in Congo, women and children aren’t housed this way.Nathalie is a single parent and she has had to strlie is a single parent and she has had to struggle with being on her own with three children and with the awful circumstances of her living conditions at Meath Court.
Similarly to many other women, Nathalie could not believe her eyes when she was given shipping containers as a home. “Even in Congo, we don’t house women and children in shipping containers.” Nathalie Bangama, originally from Congo, has three children 15 years old, 4 years old and 9 months and she ended up at Meath Court after her house caught fire. When she was given the keys to the container flat, she was crying and crying. She was told that within 6 months, she would be given a proper flat, but 2 years later she is still waiting.
Another resident of Meath Court is Melissa, a victim of domestic violence that was to be housed, in a different borough under the protection scheme. Melissa and her three small children were housed in the shipping containers. It has led her to depression and anxieties. Living in a container, it has not helped her to heal from her traumatic experiences. Instead, it is continuously making her feel unsafe and deeply anxious about herself and her children as the environment is characterized by rampant drug use, theft, and a pervasive sense of insecurity.
Like herself, many women in Meath Court have experienced sexual harassment and incidents of intimidation by drug users using the shipping containers as a space to deal, or to sleep for the night. “There was an incident of a woman falling down from the stairs and she is currently in coma – Melissa recounts. And my front door was tempered and broken, she continues- and I have taped it with a black bin bag and I am still waiting for someone from the council to come to repair it. I feel very anxious about my safety and that of my children.” Melissa’s broken door was not repaired at the time of my interview with her, weeks after the incident. Her rent is £370.55 + £19.05 service charge per week to live in shipping containers without a secure front door.
When Zara received the one-bedroom flat, she had just given birth. Her baby was only a week old. Given the top floor, she found walls riddled with bullet-like holes from the previous tenant’s mental health struggles. It was a frightening, lonely, and disheartening experience for a first-time mother.
When Zara was given the one bedroom flat she had just given birth. Her baby was one week old. She was given the last floor and one which all the walls were plastered by bullet like holes. She was told that the previous resident was suffering mental health issues and was using a hammer to bang the walls. “It felt scary, lonely and very disheartening for a first time mother who had just given birth.” Since living in the container, her wellbeing is deteriorating. She has pleaded to be allocated even in another one-bedroom in the containers, one without the violent markings on all the walls, but her pleas have gone unanswered.
Following the unanswered calls for the installment of security cameras or the placement of a security guard at Meath Court, women have resorted to create a WhatsApp group to ensure each other’s safety by sharing their whereabouts.
As policymakers and stakeholders seek solutions to London’s homelessness crisis, it is crucial to recognize and address the specific challenges faced by women. Failing to do so not only perpetuates the cycle of homelessness, but also deepens existing inequalities within society.
The question arises: why have so many women and their children been failed so miserably? Is it due to perceived vulnerability and social standing, perpetuating prejudices that hinder their access to decent living conditions?
