On-line hangout – ‘The Great Exodus: A Look at How the Migrant Crisis is Being Pictured in the Media’

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The first rescues by the MOAS search and rescue team in the Mediterranean Sea – image © Jason Florio/MOAS.eu, 2015

 

‘The Reading The Pictures Salon is an on-line, real-time discussion between photojournalists, visual academics and other visual or subject experts… .’ Read more, and register for the hangout (Sunday 10th January 2015 – 11am-1pm EST/4pm-6pm GMT), on the RTP’s salon website.

The panel:
‪MichelleBogre‬ The New School Parsons; ‪‎AnneDemo‬ Penn State University; ‪AlixandraFazzina‬Photographer, NOOR; Jason Florio Freelance Photographer; ‪ShaniOrgad‬ London School of Economics and Political Science; ‪GlennRuga‬ Social Documentary Network; ‪MichaelShaw‬Reading the Pictures; MODERATOR: ‪CaraFinnegan‬

Florio will be joining in the discussion, from the Aegean Sea, where he is currently on another photo assignment, this time with MOAS’s new rescue boat, the Topaz Responder

Wednesday Photo: Bangladeshi and Pakistani migrants in the lower decks of an overcrowded people-smuggling fishing boat

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©Jason Florio/MOAS.eu 2015. All rights reserved – in the cramped hull of a people-smuggling boat, in the Mediterranean Sea, post-rescue

 

‘In the fetid bowels the last of an estimated 200 people that were below deck on a fishing boat carrying 416, wait for the rescue team to evacuate them. Many of them were Bangladeshis, who had lived in Libya as skilled guest workers until the security situation made it untenable to remain, forcing them to take the only route possible where already over 1800 had died in the past 6 months in hopes of getting to safety.’  JASON FLORIO

 

Recently published, along with exclusive black and white portraits of rescued migrants and refugees, a 35-page feature, in VQR – Virginia Quarterly Review – Winter 2016 edition. See more of Florio’s images and read the full feature here.

 

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VQR cover shot © Jason Florio/MOAS.eu, 2015

 

 

PRESS: ‘Portraits of a Rescue on the Mediterranean’ images by Jason Florio – VQR

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VQR – cover image © Jason Florio/MOAS_EU, 2015

 

In doing so, with more than 100 subjects, Florio has created a humanizing counterpoint to the images that have dominated the narrative of the migration crisis so far. “I know it sounds cliché, but I felt these portraits were an effective way to find the individual in the whole mess. All the images of migrants we’ve seen are of chaotic hordes. I thought it was important to give them a space to represent themselves.”. Read the whole feature at VQR on-line 

 

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VQR – Portraits ©Jason Florio/MOAS_EU 2015. All rights resrved

What’s on the horizon… the dawning of a New Year

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Dawn over Khalaji, The Gambia, West Africa – with Jason Florio. Taken whilst on ‘A Short Walk in the Gambian Bush-930km African odyssey’ © Helen Jones-Florio

 

Here we are again, on the cusp of yet another New Year which, personally speaking, is often taken for granted… saying goodbye to the year pas(t)sed, making plans, looking forward, resolutions (if that’s your bag), and the mundane stuff; like doing our taxes (urghhh!). However, there are some who don’t have this luxury, those whose lives have been suddenly, and irrevocably, turned up-side-down by life events totally beyond their control and comprehension, and when even the mundane seems like an insurmountable hurdle.

It’s these people who will be on my mind as we ring in 2016, those who face one of the longest, most uncertain journies of their lives.

Wishing everyone a peaceful New Year.

HJF

For Jacqui and Bella Boo, and Kourtney, with all love and strength xxx