Photographs by young refugees light up Shoreditch for month-long exhibition

Autograph gallery has brought photography out into the open with its new #HackneyIsHome exhibition.

For the next month, ten large-scale digital photos can be viewed on rotation on the Old Street Digital Canvas, an electronic advertising display at the north side of the eponymous roundabout.

The artists are all young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds who have worked with Autograph and youth media organisation Mouth That Roars to master the arts of photography and video in the aim of reflecting on identity.

Coming from countries such as Congo, Djibouti, Afghanistan, Madagascar and Spain, the photographers have given their works upbeat titles of belonging and confidence such as: ‘What You Call House Can Be Home’, ‘Be Proud of You’, and ‘It Doesn’t Matter Where You Are From, We Are All Human’.

Somewhat incongruously, these images are interspersed with commercial exhortations from the Jockey Club to ‘Follow the Magic at Home’, and a bright pink announcement from NatWest that ‘Tomorrow Begins Today’.

The exhibition would have been more compelling had all the slots in the digital loop been devoted to it, but the images are nevertheless well worth pausing to engage with when you are next passing the roundabout.

Autograph is inviting people to submit their own photographs that respond to the theme ‘Hackney is Home’. The gallery will select its favourites to feature on its website as part of the #HackneyIsHome project. The deadline for submissions is 15 April 2021, with more information available here

#HackneyIsHome is on display until 15 April at the Old Street Digital Canvas, north side of Old Street Roundabout, EC1V 1JB.