Magnum photographers provide a powerful glimpse into the refugee crisis past and present
The photos will be shown in an open-air exhibition as part of Amnesty International's I Welcome campaign and mark the lead up to Magnum Photos' 70th anniversary.
A new exhibition on London's Southbank will feature a series of images that document refugee crises since the end of World War II, representing the scale of international displacement and putting a human face to the statistics and news stories.
Refugees from the civil war areas wait for this unfamiliar stuff, Unicef milk (reconstituted from powdered milk) distributed for the first time at the refugee camp. Ioannina, Greece, 1948David 'Chim' Seymour/ Magnum Photos
Taken by Magnum photographers, the photos illustrate the reasons why many are forced to flee, the journeys they face and for some, the end point of safety. The exhibition provides a small glimpse into the narratives of those uprooted in the past decades and offers an historical context to the current refugee crisis in Europe.
Five boys from Promahi stand in front if the refugee ship S.S Samos that evacuated children during the Civil War, Greece, 1948David 'Chim' Seymour/ Magnum Photos
The show will feature work from Magnum co-founder David 'Chim' Seymour, whose images of child refugees in Greece in 1946 are some of the earliest photos taken, and are counterpointed with Chien-Chi Chang's photograph of a mountain of lifejackets abandoned in Lesbos taken just earlier this year. Also on display are Philip Jones Griffiths' image of those fleeing their homes in Vietnam in 1968 and Lorenzo Meloni's recent image of a Syrian family in front of the rubble which used to be their home.
Refugees under fire during the battle for Saigon, Vietnam, 1968 Philip Jones Griffiths/ Magnum Photos
The open-air exhibition is part of Amnesty International's I Welcome campaign, which calls on the UK to share responsibility over the refugee crisis, and marks the lead up to Magnum Photos' 70th anniversary next year. I Welcome: an Amnesty International & Magnum Photos exhibition will be open from 7-18 December 2016, Southbank, London.
Thousands of refugees form orderly lines in the desert at the Sha-alaan One camp, as they wait calmly for food distribution from the CHARITAS charity organisation, Jordan, 1990Chris Steele-Perkins/ Magnum PhotosKurds who have fled northern Iraq arrive at the Isikveren refugee camp. Over 250.000 people fled Iraq after a bitter counter attack by Saddam Hussein. They now live in the mountains on the Turkish border in Uludere, Turkey, 1991Bruno Barbey/ Magnum PhotosChechen refugees living in neighbouring Ingushetia, Russia, 11 December, 1999Thomas Dworzak/ Magnum PhotosStenkovac refugee camp, Macedonia,1999Cristina Garcia Rodero/ Magnum PhotosA man stands at the scene of a fire, which firefights suspect was an arson attack, that destroyed a plastic factory in the Khatba district of Tripoli, Libya on 5 September, 2011. Khatba was a stronghold of Qaddafi supporters and the scene of heavy fighting between Qaddafi loyalists and rebels during the battle for TripoliMoises Saman/ Magnum PhotosSyrian families, mostly from Aleppo, are placed in a refugee camp in Vasariste near the Serbian- Hungarian border on 12 August, 2015. After a day to recover, they will walk and attempt to cross the Serbian-Hungarian get to Serbia, the last country that stands between them and a European Union memberJerome Sessini/ Magnum PhotosA family stands on what is left of their home in Kobani, Syria, 6 August 2015Lorenzo Meloni/ Magnum Photos
