• Farchanna Sudanese refugee camp in Chad (2007). Richard Wainwright’s exhibition is on at Kidogo till July 13.
HAVING photographed war-torn countries such as Sudan and Congo, local photographer Richard Wainwright turned his lens from the destruction to the people seeking escape from it.
His exhibition Seeking Refuge has been showing at Kidogo Arts House since World Refugee Day in June and captures the first stage of a refugee’s journey. It finishes up July 13.
“The message from the exhibition and the Refugee Week is kind of personalising people, making them individuals, giving them a story and a face,” he says.
With more than 50 million refugees in the world today—the highest number since World War II—Wainwright aims to tell individual stories and create understanding and compassion.
‘let people know what we’re going through here’
“You break it down to this one person, and if you can do that and tell a really emotive story and something that people can relate to … the most basics in life like freedom from fear, freedom to be safe, freedom to be able to speak out.”
He says humanising refugees is more important than ever, with Australians encouraged by the government to regard them as criminals and invaders, not desperate people pleading for shelter.
“You meet some strong and resilient people and they’re living in these situations 24 hours a day and it’s a real privilege to go and talk to them,” he says. “And they want their story to be told. They say, ‘let people know what we’re going through here’.”
Wainwright concedes it’s difficult for people who’ve never known war or famine to understand, “that life experience of being in an area of conflict or in an area where people have to flee for their life”.
“You have to be 100 per cent motivated and believe in what you’re doing and what you’re doing is gonna make a difference in some way or another.
“It’s not gonna change the world but it’s all about going from that person you’ve interviewed to that person who can hopefully make a difference and reach in that gap and making that connection.”
by JASMINA SADDEDINE