United Kingdom

Alice Myers

www.alicemyers.ne

Biography

Alice studied photography at Edinburgh College of Art. After graduating in 2008 she won the Jerwood Award and received a development grant from Arts Trust Scotland. She was subsequently published in Guardian Weekend Magazine and Portfolio Magazine. She has pursued documentary projects in Mexico, Ireland and France. Last year she won the IdeasTap/Magnum Photography Award, and completed an MA in Photography with distinction at London College of Communication.

Since then she has been working on the Medway Fellowship at UCA Rochester and facilitated a participatory project with Photoworks in Brighton. Her book, Nothing is Impossible Under the Sun was recently shortlisted for the MACK First Book Awards and the project will be shown as part of Fresh Faced Wild Eyed at the Photographers' Gallery this July.

For two years Alice travelled easily and often across the border to Calais, getting to know those who are trying to cross the border by hiding in lorries, those who smuggle them across, those who are claiming asylum in France and those with no legal status and no plans to leave.

In Calais, photography is often used to oppress and expose people, but it is also used by migrants to keep track of lives that have changed forever. In this context Alice wanted to use the camera in ways that felt respectful and negotiated, questioning her role as a photographer in this space. People could contribute to the project in whichever way they felt comfortable. Rejecting the satisfying narratives that are so often required of refugees, she instead, bring together diverse materials to evoke the parallel space to which those without papers are consigned. The project resulted in a book, exhibition and multi-screen video installation.

The Sky is Down on the Ground

Ta an Spear Anuas ar an Talamh

This work was made in the area surrounding the Sruth Fada Conn estuary, Co. Mayo, Ireland, between 2009 and 2012.

Since 2002 there has been strong resistance to the installation of a raw gas pipeline underneath the estuary. The people I spoke to and the places I visited were in part determined by my interest in this resistance. Spatially, the project is situated within the area where people felt themselves affected.

Over the course of many conversations I became aware of a sense of duration beyond the timescale of oil companies and photographers, of a landscape that constantly changes and never changes. This is my attempt as an outsider to understand what remains.