PAUL ROMANS

In October of 2017, I returned from Beirut where I had photographed inside the Shatila Refugee Camp. The most striking aspect of my research was learning about the experiences of the young people and children there, many of whom had recently come into the camp after escaping the war in Syria. These young people were, in most cases, disorientated and traumatised. A part of my work was to document the possible modes of therapeutic treatment as well as the broader social and environmental context.

In London, on the night of February 20th 2018, three young people were murdered in what the British press described as “an orgy of violence.” That these killings occurred in the space of two hours, and within walking distance from my home in Camden Town was profoundly affecting. Amongst the victims, and the recently convicted perpetrators, were the members of communities who had fled the trauma of conflict in their countries of origin to make new lives the UK.

I sensed a link which coalesced around an article in the Guardian newspaper from 30th June 2018 titled “Long hot summer: how kids can stay safe from gangs.” The article profiled an arts organisation in the borough of Camden which offers free community activities and educational workshops to local young people. Their courses are led by industry professionals in subjects as varied as documentary filmmaking, fashion illustration, dance and street art. I reached out, and within weeks was teaching a course in photography to a small group between the ages of 12 and 16. More followed, and I documented the work of the organisation as it creatively pushed back on malign social forces. The engagement is ongoing and the community impact is tangible.

The theoretical framework of this project attempts to engage with the proposition of 'speculative' documentary photography. It leverages a number of interlocking strategies including reportage, portraiture, reconstruction and articulating the built environment. Staging is employed as a destabilising device in which local young people are sometimes cast in loose roles, based upon observations and hearsay. Sometimes they are represented in actual events which are redolent of staged scenarios. The work therefore looks to distil the emergence of personal agency and performative action into images which question the form and stability of this deeply contested category.

HVH Arts