At a time when refugees in Europe are caught between a "return" policy and the rise of far right governments, this book combines photography and philosophy to examine the representation of refugees.
In 2015 and 2016, a large population movement arrives in Europe through the Balkans. Nearly one million refugees have been welcomed in Germany. At the time, German photographer Sibylle Fendt documented emergency camps across the country. The order of the arrangement contrasts with the precarious nature of the installations and the absence of human presence challenges the viewer.
We chose to publish these images because although migration is widely documented in the media and in art, the question of the representation of refugees and their autonomy in this representation is generally overlooked.
To explore this aspect, we asked the philosophers Maria Muhle and Marina Martinez Mateo, teachers at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, to write a text on this issue of representation. They proposed a very strong link between photography and refugees "beyond the illusion of a neutral image and beyond any authoritarian determination".
Between the search for anonymity of the exiles bypassing their registration and the images without human presence challenging our gaze, a critique of the stakes of representation emerges.
Nouveau Palais is a french publishing house with documentary photography as main subject.
We value the text and the way it can work with pictures.
Web Credits
Design : Juliette Duhé et Sébastien Riollier
Code : Élie Quintard