Migrant Workers

By focusing on Central and East European male migrant workers living in contemporary Britain, and incorporating underlying references to the male dominated arenas of the building site and the boxing gym they inhabit, the work investigates sexuality from within the heterosexual mainstream and establishes links between the context of location, identity, decadence and obsession - proposing a subversive reading of the figure of the male migrant as a contemporary symbol of heterosexual and homoerotic desire. The photographs aim to challenge visual conventions and offer a transgressive and controversial reading of the figure of the migrant male beyond labour, proposing a radical break with the long-dominant photographic style and photographic tradition of social documentary (and its circumstantial narrative mode) associated with the theme of migration and migrant workers, by raising questions about embodiment, agency and subordinate masculine styles within different social settings.