The following images are a selection from Bénévoles, a photo essay documenting the volunteers who support displaced communities along the borders of Northern Europe. Bénévoles was exhibited in 2019 with an accompanying chapbook.
“Bénévoles is a project I made in Northern France in 2018. I spent a few months living with a community of volunteers: activists, anarchists, travellers, youth workers and people from a wide spectrum of backgrounds who were all supporting displaced migrant and refugee communities. I hadn’t planned to document my time there, until I found myself doing it, on broken and outdated equipment in a caravan site juxtaposed between the stark beauty of the French coast and the hostility and bleakness of the camps and squats around Calais and Dunkirk.
I took pictures of the volunteers, the bénévoles. Our daily life at Palaminos, cooking and eating together, at the warehouses, on the beach and in the back of vans. At the time it made sense: to take pictures of refugees in the desperate conditions to which they were bound felt exploitative and undignified, and could have endangered them legally. If I did it again, I’d probably do it differently, but this is what it is.
Thanks always- to the organisers, the motivators and the movers and shakers. To the seamstresses and potwashers, the cop-watchers and doctors. To the van drivers, lawyers, students and front-line warriors. To my friends across the sea and my friends back home”.
KIZZY BARROW | northdaughter 