The Shortlist of the Alfred Fried Photography Award 2018
Lucky
In April 2017, I started working on a series - for my graduation project at the Fotoacademie in Amsterdam - documenting refugee family reunifications. The families are from conflict-torn places like Syria, Eritrea, Iraq and Yemen. With my project I would like to show that refugees are people; real men, women, children, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. They are human beings, not just numbers and statistics or a problem that needs to disappear. This series is a tribute to the courageous people who risked their lives on perilous journeys, endless trips by boat, bus, train and foot, crossing borders and the Mediterranean sea. After years apart, the families are finally reunited with their loved ones. They are the lucky ones who survived.
Photos by Selma van der Bijl
In April 2017, I started working on a series - for my graduation project at the Fotoacademie in Amsterdam - documenting refugee family reunifications. The families are from conflict-torn places like Syria, Eritrea, Iraq and Yemen. With my project I would like to show that refugees are people; real men, women, children, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. They are human beings, not just numbers and statistics or a problem that needs to disappear. This series is a tribute to the courageous people who risked their lives on perilous journeys, endless trips by boat, bus, train and foot, crossing borders and the Mediterranean sea. After years apart, the families are finally reunited with their loved ones. They are the lucky ones who survived.
Photos by Selma van der Bijl
