Images from a state of nowhere

MYANMAR TIMES

By Fiona Macgregor | Monday, 24 March 2014

By Fiona Macgregor | Monday, 24 March 2014

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The walls of the space where Greg Constantine’s photo documen-tary “Exiled to Nowhere” is on display are peeling and streaked with grime.

“Exiled to Nowhere” is on display in Bangkok until March 23. Photos: Greg Constantine“Exiled to Nowhere” is on display in Bangkok until March 23. Photos: Greg Constantine

Constantine said the abandoned Bangkok bank had lain empty for about 15 years until he decided to mount the show. Although it appears dilapidated, most of the people featured in the American photographer’s work would probably be glad of such solid shelter.

His subjects are a stateless people. Denied citizenship by the Myanmar government, they have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh in the hope of avoiding persecution or remained living in a state of apartheid within Myanmar.

They call themselves Rohingya while the government insists they should be called Bengalis – denying them a name as well as basic human rights.

Over eight years, Constantine recorded their lives. Initially, he photographed those living as refugees in Bangladesh. When communal violence broke out in northern Rakhine State in 2012, leaving over 140,000 people homeless, he photographed life in the IDP camps and ghetto where they remain trapped.

[images from a state of nowhere]

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