Leave to Remain

I feel embarrassed to live so close to Calais and not be able to do more than bring boots and clothes with me. I had hoped that by photographing this makeshift campsite I could help bring it—and the catastrophe it represents—to a wider public. It is almost a year since I began going and it continues to grow: some 10,000 are living there now. The film crews and journalists have gone, but more police are drafted in, with threats of flattening the whole area to push the residents farther and farther away from the ports and lorry parks. The French see this as an issue of UK borders not as a humanitarian crisis. Therefore no NGOs can set up and give proper care. I have made this work to continue a dialogue about the Jungle. My work is consciously understated. These people are being overlooked and this is my tribute to their effort to find a better life, an effort that brings them eventually to the camp with the hope of moving on from there.