South West SIM Project

People who have experience of displacement and those working to support refugees and asylum seekers in the South West of England were invited to workshops at Martin Parr Foundation and Royal Photographic Society in Bristol as part of the ongoing SIM Project. In a process that combines analogue and digital photography with jewellery making and origami, participants will create unique SIM-scale artefacts to keep, wear and to be added to the project collection.

The personal artefacts made as part of Platforma 2023 will be exhibited in Houston, Texas in 2024. They will be shown alongside SIM artefacts made by over 170 participants from countries including Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela, Hong Kong, Senegal and Libya at previous workshops held in 7 countries across Europe.

“People migrate from one place to another, and as they move, their bonds of love with the place they come from continue like spider webs.” — Mahide, Turkish poet and workshop participant

The project is led by artist and anthropologist Liz Hingley, with the support of Jeweller Sofie Boons and Frank Menger of the Centre for Print Research at the University of West England. Initially inspired by collaboration with Syrians on a UK resettlement programme in 2017, the project was recently supported by Liz’s residency within the Department of Digital Humanities at Kings College London (2020-23) and is sponsored by 4JET: innovations in glass, Just Castings and Beyond Print.

As part of the commission The SIM Project was presented at BOP Festival in Bristol.

Martin Parr Foundation hosted the workshops and an accompanying public symposium bringing together artists whose works relates to themes of migration, displacement and belonging.

Commissioned as part of the Platforma festival 2023, produced by Counterpoints Arts and partners across the South West of England.