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Daily Archives: July 17, 2013

Free Range 2013 graduate exhibition: Best of Show

Leave a comment Posted by oxfordschoolofphotography on July 17, 2013

University of Westminster BA Photography graduate Aida Silvestri has been named as one of BJP’s two Best of Show winners at this year’s Free Range exhibitions. For her final degree project, Aida Silvestri chose a subject that was close to home. Born in Eritrea, east Africa, to an Italian father and an Eritrean mother, Silvestri decided to document the experiences of refugees from the region as they travelled to the UK. Eritrea has been governed by a dictator for 22 years and there is no freedom of speech or religion, Silvestri explains. People who leave are regarded as criminals and are unable to return home for fear of imprisonment or death. writes Gemma Padley in the BJP

Silvestri mapped the route each person took and superimposed it as a corresponding line across the individual portraits. “Mapping the journeys graphically allows the viewer to trace these journeys,” she says. “In the early days [of the regime] people could take a plane but others have had to travel on foot and by car to a point where they could catch a plane. The journeys have become increasingly difficult.”