Dinu Li and Judith Quax

The personal possessions of undocumented Chinese migrant workers in the north of England in the intimacy of their temporary accommodation is the subject in Dinu Li's project Secret Shadows.

Due to their legal status in the UK and their likely refusal to be photographed, Li investigates instead their lifestyle through their belongings and the stark simplicity of their rooms.

The photographer explores in these images notions of displacement, memory and identity as we are allowed to enter the privacy of the workers' rooms and to use our judgement and imagination to interpret the traces of their presence.

Although with a different rationale, Judith Quax has also placed these traces at the core of her subject matter.  She has photographed the rooms where young Senegalese men had lived before setting off for the Canary Islands in their quest to reach the European Union and join its workforce. The precarious fishing boats in which these men and women are trafficked carry up to 150 people in a journey that can take at least three days to complete.

Judith "talked to family and friends of the men, interested why the men made this perilous trip and to find out what happened to them. Some of them died, some of them reached Europe and from some of them there is no news".

www.judithquax.com (via)
www.dinuli.com