Nothing is Impossible Under the Sun
Alice Myers
Self Published
Softcover
88 pages
240×180 mm
2014
ISBN: Not available
‘Calais is the French port closest to the United Kingdom. It is not known how many people attempt to cross the border here without documents.
I travel easily and often across this border, getting to know those who hide in trucks, those who smuggle them across, those who are homeless while claiming asylum in France and those with no legal status and no plans to leave.
In Calais photography is sometimes used to oppress, to expose or to typecast people as either victims or criminals. Conversely, refugees reassure themselves of their own continued existence and remember happier times through their personal photographs. Within this context I sought to use a camera in ways that felt respectful, open and generative.
By negotiating the terms on which I take photographs, and incorporating diverse materials such as drawings, writing and sound recordings, I shape a complex representation of people who are legally invisible. My role as outsider, photographer and author is continually called into question, as is the viewer’s position.
The resulting fragmented narratives evoke the parallel existence to which people without papers are consigned. Here the presence of the human body itself is disallowed. Here is repetitive, futile effort, occasional farcical comedy and the impossibility of rest.’
Alice Myers graduated with a First Class Honours Degree in Visual Communications from Edinburgh College of Art in 2013, and went on to accept a Distinction in the MA in Photography from London College of Communication.
www.alicemyers.net
