A Two-Voice Tour: Aimée Thirion and Mariam Guerey

As part of this series, Aimée Thirion, the photographer behind the exhibition, will speak with Mariam Guerey of Secours Catholique in Calais on Thursday, November 28, 2024, at 6:00 p. m.

“I take her hand. I explain that we can stop the interview. She wipes away her tears, looks me straight in the eye, and exclaims, ‘It’s important to tell our story! For our children, too—they have the right to know!’” I’ve met women who dared to set out on the journey—some accompanied, others alone. Because back home, there’s gender-based violence, dictatorship, war, poverty, hunger… Because back home, they risk death. I saw them—beautiful, determined, often scarred by a journey we can scarcely imagine, yet still standing tall! There are more and more of them on the migration routes, with or without children. They know the dangers well, and fear too, but the desire to live is stronger than anything. This is a project about exile and courage. It began with a series of portraits, taken in France in 2022, of these women who are all too often rendered invisible, in collaboration with the “Saint-Bazile Self-Managed Reception Center for Asylum Seekers” (Cada) and the Auberge Marseillaise in Marseille. As well as the organizations J’En suis and J’Y Reste in Lille, and Secours Catholique in Lille and Calais. An encounter with those who have so much to teach us. ” 

Committed “  with Secours ” shortly after the Sangatte camp closed in 2002—first as a volunteer and then as a staff member—Maryam Guerey has been working at Secours Catholique in Calais for 20 years. She spends time with refugees stranded at the border, speaking Arabic with some and sharing laughter and smiles with others; it is only natural that she would discuss Aimée Thirion’s project.

↘︎ Sign Up