Medyka Portraits - Geoff wedge
Festival Exhibition
Location: Bay View Shopping Centre
Open: 7th October - 31st October // 11AM-4PM (MON,TUE,THURS,FRI,SAT)
© Geoff Wedge
In April 2022 Geoff Wedge visited Medyka Poland, and Shehyni Ukraine volunteering with the Siobaun’s Trust as a photographer, hot drinks maker and human being. As nearly two months had passed since the first strikes of the escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war the majority of media covering the conflict had left the border crossing to cover the war inland or on other stories altogether leaving a lot of charities continuing their work at the Polish-Ukrainian borders without media coverage.
During Geoff’s initial trip he focused photographically on the efforts of the volunteers, concentrating on their positive work ethic and their compassion but soon began speaking with Ukrainians and other nationalities who had recently crossed the border. He took a small number of portraits of those he had been speaking to. Before his trip home Geoff began to concentrate his energy around the bus depot where Ukrainians would board buses to take them to the centres in Przemyśl that would provide humanitarian assistance, and help them to relocate to other regions where long-term shelters were prepared.
“Looking through the images from the bus depot and surrounding area, although I felt I had some strong photographs, I felt the portraits may be more honest.
A week or so later the portraits I had made of those crossing the border with medium format film had arrived from the lab, I felt these images genuine, not caricaturing those I had spoken to and of course without the blessings of the people within the portraits would not of made these photographs.
I returned to the Medyka / Shehyni border crossing late May which was the next chance I had, with the intention of making more portraits of those crossing.”
© Geoff Wedge
“This body of work is not one of urgency, the war itself has been well documented by the media and by civilians experiencing the war using phones to capture and share videos and images. Like much of my work this project is a reflection rather than a reaction.
I do not yet wish to share the whole series of images but I am hoping that by sharing some prints with an audience within the Northern Eye Festival I can test the waters so to speak, to better understand the time and place this body of work belongs in order to give the people within the photographs the highest level of respect and dignity that they deserve.”
All festival exhibitions are FREE to visit.