Contested Territories

Abstract

Using Dubravka Ugresic’s 1991 book The Museum of Unconditional Surrender as a starting point, this project sought to highlight the objective and subjective ideals of still life photography through a participatory workshop with refugees and asylum seekers in Blackburn. Participants were asked to bring and talk about objects of particular significance to their life with which they could share and discuss stories informally with an established community environment.

The workshop and discussions were researched and the objects used to inform a series of photographic prints presented with text from the workshop audio recordings. The juxtaposition of image and text, narrative and social context was used to highlight the contested territory between these subjective narratives and the objective analyses with the immigration and refugee system of the UK border agency.