Interior, Jungle Library, The Jungle, Calais, France (diptych), 2016
On entering the Library, I encountered a room made from plastic sheeting overflowing with books and refugees. Intense tutoring sessions were being conducted on my right by a 24-year-old British woman to a group of Iranian men. On my left a South Asian woman was doing the same with a group of African men. Everyone seemed to desperately want to learn English. Because some refugees did not want to be photographed, I often focused instead on symbols such as maps of refugee routes, hand drawn signs saying things like "I love Afghanistan" and language lessons on a caulk board. I walked around the camp and photographed graffiti covered plastic shacks, an Ethiopian Coptic church, and the sad little plastic covered places that the refugees called home.