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Darren Ell Photography

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15 images Created 4 Dec 2016

Surviving Refuge

After filing a photo essay on the living conditions in the Idomeni refugee camp near the Macedonian border for the Montréal Métro newspaper, and aware that the mainstream media had been inundated with traditional documentary images of the migrant crisis in Europe, I began making photographs that were more contemplative and evocative, more personal and less generic. I left people out of these images to allow the viewer to ask questions, to imagine the plight of the refugees using the clues and traces appearing in the landscape. In Surviving Refuge, I use photographs of objects, spaces, as well as continuous and disconnected landscapes from northern Greece and the island of Lesbos to address some of the themes and contrasts I saw in the refugee crisis: the pain of loss, emptiness and absence from leaving behind one’s family and homeland; the abandonment and rejection, even violence, the refugees were facing in Europe; the disappointed dream of refuge and freedom which became a reality of survival and enclosure; and finally, the continued scattering of bodies from one land to another.
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  • Lifejackets lie in the landscape, blown by the wind from the landfill near the town of Molyvos. Lesbos, Greece, March 15, 2016.
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  • Some of the tens of thousands of lifejackets in the landfill near Molyvos. Lesbos, Greece, March 15, 2016.
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  • Abandoned clothing, blankets and food on a road leading to the Macedonian border. Northern Greece, March 24, 2016.
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  • Refugees from the Middle East stand around a fire in the early morning in the Idomeni refugee camp on the Macedonian border. March 8, 2016.
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  • Abandoned sleeping bag in a forest by the Macedonian border. Evzonoi, Greece. March 24, 2016.
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  • A young Syrian girl searches for her family in the Idomeni refugee camp on the Macedonian border. March 10, 2016.
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  • Discarded blankets and clothing in an abandoned house near the Macedonian border. Evzonoi, Greece, March 24, 2016.
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  • A refugee in the Idomeni camp digs a trench in an attempt to stop the rain from flowing into his tent. Idomeni, Greece, March 9, 2016.
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  • An abandoned train car filled with garbage, the soft padding of the seats cut out for use in migrant tents. Idomeni, Greece, March 25, 2016.
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  • Refugees in the Idomeni camp on the Macedonian border clamour for bread being delivered by a local Greek charity. Idomeni, Greece, March 10, 2016.
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  • A refugee woman walks along the tracks amid the tents in the Idomeni refugee camp where 14,000 people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan were stopped from crossing into Macedonia. March 8, 2016.
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  • Migrants’ tents set up on the property of a gas station in northern Greece. Polykastro, Greece, March 23, 2016.
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  • View of the Cherso refugee camp in northern Greece. Cherso, Greece, March 22, 2016.
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  • A refugee woman tries to start a fire in a field next to the Idomeni refugee camp on the Macedonian border. March 8, 2016.
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  • Tents set up on agricultural land in a migrant camp on the Macedonian border. Idomeni, Greece, March 8, 2016.
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