In the vicinity of the port of Calais there is an area of a few hundred square meters known as the ‘jungle’. The inhabitants of this area have travelled many miles to get there and still their journey is not over. Calais is the starting point for the last and most popular crossing. Thousands have come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan and Nigeria in search of a better life in England, the destination of their dreams. Not that they are welcome, as illegal immigrants are banned and excluded through a vast system of laws.
While waiting for the chance to make the long crossing, they build makeshift shelters: tent-like structures of waste materials found in the immediate vicinity of the camp. Even in the best case, it is hard to recognize the cultural character of their country of origin in these structures.
For Henk Wildschut the sight of the shelter, anywhere in Europe, became a symbol of misery. It also became the starting point for his exploration of the question: How can a photographer depict a humanitarian problem in images without clichés?
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