I have forgotten the language of my fathers and have not yet learned the language of my children. I live in a foreign country. I am an immigrant. I live in a little yellow house by the woods in Oslo with my family.
I was born and brought up in Jarrow, a tough industrial town on the south bank of the river Tyne in Britain.
I have lived abroad for more years than I care to admit. I never wanted to leave Jarrow. I always imagined that one day I would make it my home. I realize now that I can never return. Somehow I traded knowledge of the outside world for some vital piece of me.
With this realization, I have photographed my hometown and the people I know there, to try to establish how much of where I am from determines who I am, and to begin to understand why I can´t seem to let go.For me it’s something intangible. Jarrow is a place that exists more in my imagination than in fact, a collection of stories. A longing that a life of comfortable exile has only sharpened.
— Chris Harrison
Editor's note: Chris Harrison met his publisher, Maarten Schilt of Schilt Publishing, during portfolio reviews at Lens Culture FotoFest Paris 2011. His work is currently being exhibited in Oslo by Ellen-k Willas of PUG Gallery, another reviewer at FotoFest Paris.
I Belong Jarrow
by Chris Harrison
92 pages
Schilt Publishing
ISBN: 978 90 5330 780 9
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