BEN SMITH

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Belonging, Coexistence & Community

These portraits were shot during a recent commission for Tate Modern to document an educational workshop on 'belonging, coexistence and community' at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark (one of the coolest and most iconic art galleries on the planet, by the way.) The participants were Danish students and some of their peers from the Red Cross School - refugees from Syria and elsewhere sent abroad for safety by their parents.

I wish I'd had more time to do these, but the workshop was being run like a Swiss watch to a tight schedule by artist Albert Potrony and since this was not part of my original brief to document the process but an idea I threw in at the last minute I had to knock them out super quick as and when I could. The objects, which are being held by the Red Cross kids, were brought in by the Danish kids to represent the themes of the workshop. The client liked the idea immediately and loves these portraits. In fact, they've commissioned me to do more of the same. Which is all merely a long-winded way of making the point that it's always a good move to throw in your own ideas and therefore provide a bit of extra value that the client didn't anticipate.