Asylum: World in a Frame Exhibition
Asylum: World in a Frame offers an intimate look at people seeking asylum in the UK who are living in temporary hotel accommodation in Bristol. Over six weeks, participants collaborated with artist Aida Silvestri to document their daily experiences, perspectives, and wellbeing through photography.
Through hands-on workshops exploring composition, lighting, and visual storytelling, each participant developed a personal photographic language. Peer-sharing sessions became more than learning spaces, they nurtured solidarity and mutual understanding of shared experiences. These collaborative processes laid the groundwork for the images displayed in this exhibition.
Using single-use analogue cameras, mobile phones, and digital cameras, the images gathered here capture moments of hope, challenges, loneliness, boredom, faith, friendship, family, and love. Together, these photographs offer a deeply personal view of the emotional reality of displacement and the slow process of adapting to a new environment.
This exhibition extends beyond visual narratives, incorporating insights from a resident survey on life in asylum accommodations. It considers the questions:
What helps us to stay well in this strange new ‘home’?
What makes hotel living difficult and is there anything we would like to change?
How do we keep our identity, values and culture alive – how do we know we still count?
The Lived Experience Wellbeing Panel curated the show, giving voice to these questions and the people behind them. The curators invite us to look closely, reflect, and witness the stories within each frame. The exhibition aims to engage dialogue, advocate for change, and amplify asylum seekers’ voices.
Asylum World in a Frame is funded by Lloyds Bank Foundation and represents the culmination of two years’ work by a Local Collaboration led by Bristol Mind, SARI and the NHS Hope Refugee Trauma Service with a range of specialist stakeholders including BRASP, Bristol Refugee Rights (Pride Without Borders), UWE and Clearsprings Ready Homes.
Free (no booking required)