Paper Tigers: Immigration and the Refugee Crisis

Genocides Curse

Chris Hopkins is an Australian freelance visual journalist and covers humanitarian issues globally. Chris’ work features in publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Jakarta Globe, and for UNHCR and Amnesty International.

In Genocides Curse we see Lawrence, a Rwandan Hutu, in his home at Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda. After the 1994 Rwandan genocide, as the Tutsi minority exacted revenge on the Hutu, their previous persecutors, Lawrence fled to neighbouring Tanzania. 

Returning in 1996 he was imprisoned. Released after seven years, he returned to his wife and two children. Three days later, their home was attacked and burned down whilst they slept. 

Escaping, the molten roofing tarpaulin collapsed onto his back - Lawrence suffered third-degree burns and spent four months in hospital. His wife and children were killed in the attack.  Photographed as part of a larger body of work - ‘Living in the Shadow’, Lawrences' story was published in The Sydney Morning Herald in 2015.    

Abdullatif, May 2016, Manus Island, Papua New Guinea 

Brian has had a decades long career as a freelance photojournalist initially in the UK and now long based in Cairns, Australia. He has worked extensively for numerous newspapers, magazines and wires in Australia and internationally.

In his work we see Iraqi asylum seeker Abdullatif Almoftaji, showing the scars of a beating by Manus Island PNG security guards and police. 

"Abdullatif was 17 when incarcerated on Manus Island by Australia in 2012. He was later allowed to work in PNG in the city of Lae. There he was beaten by locals, paid little and feared for his life. He returned to Manus preferring the perceived relative safety of the detention centre and other asylum seekers."

Rohingya refugees cross the Naf River into Bangladesh Sunday 12th November 2017

A Walkley Award-winning photojournalist and Nikon Ambassador, David Dare Parker has photographed for many national and international magazines throughout Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Australasia. 

In October 2016, a military crackdown in the wake of a deadly attack on an army post, sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh.  This most recent exodus from Rakhine state, Myanmar, to the makeshift camps that have sprung up in Cox’s Bazaar District, began on 25th August 2017, when militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army targeted about 30 police posts and an army base, killing several people. 

Train Bashing 

Craig Greenhill won the Walkley Award for News Photography in 2006 for his series of five images called Train Bashing, which horrified most Australians despite simmering discontent in Sydney's 'Shire' long being suggested in social media postings.

On 11th December 2005, Brent Lohman and other rioters attacked Ali Hashimi on a suburban train at Cronulla Station, in an event known as the 'Cronulla Riots'. 

Day In The Life of America 

Beginning in 1975, Gerrit Fokkema was a staff photographer with The Canberra Times. He later joined The Sydney Morning Herald newspapers and then the Good Weekend weekly magazine before leaving in 1987 to pursue a freelance career. 

Sudanese Protest, 2008

Angela Wylie was a photojournalist at The Age for 26 years, where she hand-printed photographers’ works in the darkroom before taking on a cadetship. Angela has covered environmental and political stories across South East Asia and the Pacific. 

Life and a Suitcase

Richard Wainwright is a committed and passionate storyteller with a strong humanitarian focus. As an NGO photographer and filmmaker, he’s been reporting on social justice and human rights issues around the world for over 20 years. 

Dreaming of becoming the first muslim hijabi ballerina in the world, 31st January 2016

Edwina Pickles is a staff photographer for The Sydney Morning Herald from 2000 to present. She is a Sydney born photographer who is interested in environmental portraiture and documenting Australian life.