In the Shadow of Brexit

The book

A commission from Prof. Nando Sigona, at the University of Birmingham, to photograph families with one or more parents from a non-UK EU country.
You can read the introduction to the book in the slideshow below or download the complete pdf book here. The accompanying website and videos can be found here.

About the photography

The photography was commissioned from Francesca Moore and myself over the summer of 2019. The interviews were conducted by Dr Marie Godin.

Until the referendum these families simply lived in one place – Europe.
Post-referendum, their homes imply an imposed division and a decision – this place and another place.
We used three prompts in the photographs:
a formal portrait, presenting the family to the outside world
an informal portrait, the family relating to each-other, and
a photograph featuring objects which represented home.

Formally, I decided to produce very rectilinear images to give a sense of order and stability within the family in the face of the chaos around Brexit.

Selected pages from the book