Competition: 100 images of migration

By Emilie Yerby

You may already have heard about “100 Images of Migration”. This competition is being run by the Migration Museum Project in conjunction with the Guardian Newspaper.

We want to ensure that as many people as possible get the chance to enter the competition – particularly young people, and people with a strong connection to migration, including current refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.

We are inviting entrants to submit an ‘Image of Migration’. All kinds of images are welcome – from photos and paintings to collages, to any other kind of visual depiction.

The definition of “migration” is as broad as possible – your picture may be something you or a family member brought to the UK, an image from a migration journey; or it might be something completely public – from border agency buildings to, say, bank notes printed on Huguenot Portal family paper. Your images can be historic or contemporary; the migration they evoke can be voluntary or forced.

You are asked to write a short explanation of what your image means to you. We don’t mind how long – from a few words to a paragraph. What’s important is that your words, and your image, tell a story of migration.

For example, we received this entry from Tim Smith:

“A woman born in Britain holds the only two possessions her Polish mother brought with her when she arrived in this country shortly after the end of the Second World War. They are her Polish bible, and a photograph of her holding the bible on the farm in Germany to which she was deported to work during the War. She never returned to Poland. I like this picture as it is indicative of the few things that many migrants are able to carry with them on the often difficult journeys that they are forced into making: their culture and their memories.”

You are invited to upload your images to the competition, either via the Guardian, or upload via the Migration Museum Project website.

• ALL ENTRIES MUST BE SUBMITTED BY FRIDAY – 15 JULY 2011. 

The judging panel will be: Barbara Roche, former Minister for Immigration, Kwame Kwei-Armah, actor and playwright, Afua Hirsch, the Guardian legal correspondent, and Danny Sriskandarajah, director of the Royal Commonwealth Society. A selection of winning entries will feature in the Guardian Weekend magazine.