100 Images of Migration Online Gallery

The Story So Far

Our first exhibition, 100 Images of Migration, was shown at Hackney Museum in 2013. This was the result of a competition run with the Guardian that asked for images that said something about migration to the people submitting them. It attracted about 600 contributions, from amateur and professional photographers, all of whom wrote, briefly or at greater length, about why they had selected that particular image. These ‘stories’ range from the immensely moving to the everyday, but together they tell a compelling story about what migration means now to people in this country. For a view of the full range of images submitted as part of the competition, and to upload your own, visit our Flickr site.

From these contributions, the judging panel selected the 100 images that they considered the best, or most resonant, images, and these have formed the basis of the exhibition when it was displayed in Hackney and, since then, in Senate House (London), the offices of Freedom from Torture, the School of Museum Studies in Leicester University, the Heritage Gallery in the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich and Wardown Park Museum, Luton. At Leicester, it was given a digital make-over and a presence in Leicester railway station – it is well worth looking at some of the exciting ways in which our exhibition has been reinterpreted by the Museum Studies students and staff. A selection of the 100 images were also a part of Adopting Britain at Southbank Centre from April to September 2015.

The exhibition continues to attract interest around the UK, with venues lined up well into 2016. The idea, in all cases, is that venues adopting the exhibition also adapt it, adding to it images from the venue’s immediate environment and thereby telling the local story. In this way, we hope, the exhibition grows and becomes ever more representative of the visual story of migration in the country. If you are interested in hosting this exhibition, please contact Andrew Steeds.