Magnum's moving photos of refugees
The photo agency teams with Amnesty International to highlight refugee crises past and present
Anyone who believes Europe’s current refugee crisis is unprecedented should take a look through Magnum Photos’ archives. The world-famous photo agency has covered many similar events since its foundation in 1947. Indeed, one of Magnum’s earliest photobooks, David ‘Chim’ Seymour’s Enfants d’Europe – published in conjunction with UNESCO in 1949 – captures the plight of displaced children, many of whom were housed in refugee camps following the Greek civil war.
Seymour’s book features in our new publication Magnum Photobook: The Catalogue Raisonné, and some of his images also appear in a new outdoor photo exhibition opening in London this week.
UK human-rights organization Amnesty International has partnered with the world-famous photo agency to host a free public exhibition of refugee photographs from the 1940s up until the present day.
The show, I Welcome, runs 7 – 18 December along London’s South Bank, in an effort to illustrate how often these sorts of crises have arisen over the decades following the Second World War.
I Welcome forms part of Amnesty’s larger campaign, in which it is calling on the UK Government to share responsibility in responding to the crisis.
To find out more about Seymour Chim’s Enfants d’Europe and many other titles order a copy of Magnum Photobook: The Catalogue Raisonné here.