Enrico Frank

My friend Nick put me in touch with Enrico, who used to share a house in Oxford with Nick’s friends when Enrico worked there as a hydrologist, a job in which he also captained the “Foreigners’” cricket team (“We lost every match we played!”) before returning to Italy. He continues to travel around the continent for work, which is made much less difficult by the EU’s rules on free movement.

Enrico is a Padua local, and graduated from university here as well, so he suggested meeting in the old building that dates from the founding of the university in 1222. I check out the main quadrangle of the building to scope out potential angles and, once we return there for the shoot he informs me that this was the very place in which he graduated (and in which his friends performed the ritual humiliations bestowed upon the newly graduated Italians). I’m immediately glad I’ve scoped out an angle in exactly the right building.

He and his youngest daughter Carla (who is feeling ill but doesn’t want to miss out on a real photoshoot) pose for me patiently for as long as we feel is polite - the university’s PR staff arrive to ask if we have permission, which we don’t, and Enrico does the talking.

Enrico tells me that Copernicus studied here, that Galileo was a professor at the university, and that the first post mortem human dissections were carried out here (the first advances in medicine in about 1700 years, since ancient Greece, in fact). Without free movement, it’s possible that none of the ideas developed here would have spread to the rest of Europe, and there would have been not quite as much enlightenment. Freedom of movement and exchange of ideas is crucial to the advancement of science, the spread of knowledge and understanding.

Later, I meet Enrico again and he takes me to his home to meet his family. His wife has cooked squid and polenta, which is delicious, and we drink wine, discuss rugby, read Shakespeare in a mannered, loud and actorly voice for the amusement of his eldest daughter Emma (who is in a drama club), and grumble about that thing beginning with B…

Grazie mille, Famiglia Frank.
A presto.

Gasper Tavcar.

“Why would you do that? Why would you make life harder for yourselves? Why would you decide you need [more documents] just to travel to the next country?”
”This thing is built on friendship, trust, sharing, being at peace - who wants to get rid of that?”

I had no good answers for this, not least because I don’t think there are any good answers, but also because my Slovenian (three words, none of which are “Anger”, “Madness” or “Deception”) wouldn’t cover it. It was also really cold, so hanging about and idly chatting after the photoshoot seemed like a bad idea.

I meet Gasper through a friend of a friend (a British guy called Simon, who I’m visiting in Tignes in a few days).
They are both alpine climbers and met while climbing in the Italian Dolomites.

Gasper is a biology student in Ljubljana. As a student and a climber he doesn’t have the money to travel widely, but has the opportunity to do so when funds and studies allow through his right of free movement. But, right now, and with great climbing in Slovenia, he’s not in any rush.

From Gasper I learn that his university is a world-leading centre in the study of crabs, which does seem unlikely, and that Slovenia has a lot of dinosaur remains (presumably thanks to it being made entirely out of limestone).

Luke Dunne.
Luke is a dancer from Market Harborough, England. It’s a prosperous and pleasant but fairly conservative place, and if you want to be a dancer you really need to go somewhere else.
After training in London, Luke moved to Ljubljana, where he stayed. His partner Katja is expecting their child, so I guess he’s staying.

I wanted to photograph Luke in a location that either meant something to him or was strongly representative of his home: it’s what I try to do with everyone I photograph. As it happened, Luke invited me to his and Katja’s flat in a socialist Yugoslav-era block. It’s a small flat with very pleasant rooms, but the space that worked best was the hallway outside - a generous utilitarian area that modern blocks would not have. Home. History. The architecture of place. Perfect. Also, as Luke is six foot one (and a half) it made sense to use the good ceiling height for lighting.

Eszter Bornemisza.

”Under communism, in Hungary we were allowed to travel to the West once every three years, if we met certain conditions. Today, almost thirty years after the regime change I find myself at the airport for the third time this year, even though it’s only March and I still feel the rush of the freedom of travelling.” For Eszter - as for most former Soviet Block citizens - free movement is more important than for the average European.

 She is an artist and a member of two UK based artist groups. She believes that exchanging ideas in person and influencing each other through our artworks and travelling exhibitions widens horizons and propels us. Any restriction on this freedom would make both the individual and the group weaker.

Eszter is a fiber artist working with recycled paper, textiles and other found soft materials. The theme of her work revolves around ideas that reflect our relations to urban life. With the multi-layered surfaces of real and imaginary maps she is striving to grasp moments of finding our place both physically and mentally.

Andrea Dzuroskova.

Andrea likes to travel a lot. Not having to worry about visas or changing money is something that simplifies this greatly - just buy a ticket and go.

I meet Andrea through a fellow Slovak, Linda (whose family I photographed in Luxembourg). I have asked Andrea to suggest a place to meet - and potentially make the portrait - in a place that has some meaning to her or is emblematic of the country or city. We meet in Bratislava at Hodžovo námestie, outside the presidential palace, as that’s where she and her friends used to hang out when they were at school.

What’s immediately apparent is that it’s not the best place ever for a photoshoot, so we try the gardens behind the palace. They’re better, and there are some interesting sculptures (Maria Terezia, the last of the Habsburgs, on a horse, looking a lot like Queen Victoria. Surely a coincidence?) but again, there is a problem: it’s way too windy. In fact it would be dangerous to put up a light stand and a light. So, we decide to move on, perhaps to find a calmer spot (there were none) or something more striking.

And striking it was: The Blue Church. It’s a church, and it’s so blue it doesn’t look real.
It’s not a hugely important building for Andrea, but it is a good landmark, it’s incredibly photogenic, and it’s opposite what was once the maternity hospital in which she was born.
In fact, apart from the wind, which was doing its best to tear the scaffolding off the former hospital opposite, it’s perfect.

I went for the option of hand-holding the light while sitting on the ground. We both felt that doing the shoot quickly would be safer and more comfortable, and would allow us to get indoors for a coffee and something to eat.

Michaela Honkova.

“We all want the same things, have the same motivations, the same hopes and desires. We tell different stories, but everyone wants to be happy and have enough.” “Oh so we are both photographers - it’s just that my subjects are a lot further away?”

I meet Michaela (and, a few days later, Andrea) through Linda, whose family I photographed in Luxembourg. Michaela is an astronomer and astrophysicist, which inevitably means she travels to conferences all over the world. She also now lives in Ceske Budejovice, in a country she was not born in - Czechoslvakia ceased to exist 26 years ago - while her extended family are in both Czechia and Slovakia, and further afield in France.

Other than conference travel, Michaela would love to go to Japan, as she’s a huge fan of Japanese Lolita fashion. It’s not easy to get hold of in Czech, so a trip to Japan with a spare empty suitcase would be perfect. 

Lisa Siferlinger.

“Sure, a border in Ireland. Yeah, that’ll work. Has anyone in England got even the slightest idea? Let’s go back to the days of smuggling and gangs.”

Lisa is Irish. She arrived in St Johann in Tirol ten years ago as a tour rep for an Irish holiday company. She clearly didn’t hate snow then, as she stayed and became bar manager at the Hotel “Park”, and married a local guy. I say local, but he’s German, so technically an immigrant too.
Fortunately Lisa loves St Johann, the bar she runs, the hotel she works in and the clientelle who come back every year. They’re often Irish, and the resident (Scottish) Australian guitarist who’s on hand to serenade the guests every night plays a lot of Irish tunes. There’s no way you could avoid seeing this as a community of locals, transplants, eternally returning new friends who become old friends. 

Is all this unique and special to the Park, or even to St Johann? I don’t know, but it is very welcoming. I’m told I’ll be back. I don’t doubt it. 

Livija Uskalis is Latvian.
On meeting her, the first thing that struck me was the broad Yorkshire accent. I knew - because we’d discussed lots via email - that she would have an accent; born in Bradford to Latvian refugee parents who fled the Soviet invasion, she grew up doing both completely normal British things and, at home, speaking Latvian and immersed in the culture of her parents’ homeland.
I felt she would be an ideal candidate to illustrate the value of free movement and the values of tolerance and welcome that we should extend to refugees and migrant workers alike.

Although many of the Latvian diaspora returned ‘home’ after the fall of communism, a second wave of emigrants once again set out across the continent in search of work after the financial crisis of 2008, mostly to Ireland, Germany and the UK. It’s easy to do, and for some - especially from the south east of the country, bordering Russia - low wages and poor job prospects mean many feel there are few reasons to stay. Livija and her family are unusual, then, in that all of them have returned to, and have stayed in, Latvia.

Community and free movement. From refugees to community builders to returners, a million or more Latvians are on the move.

Alec, Lindsay, Lewis, Giles and Ian Brodie. Utrecht, Netherlands.

Giles and Ian are brothers. They left the UK in the early 1980s - their father worked abroad a lot - and settled in the Netherlands in 1988, and have been here ever since. They still have UK passports, but their (British, ex-naval officer) father is now strongly advising them to obtain Dutch ones - just in case.

Ian’s sons are mixed nationality - two are half Italian, one is half South African - and they also travel on British passports, and have also been advised to obtain Dutch ones.

Freedom of movement won’t stop for EU citizens if/when the UK leaves the EU, but it will stop for British citizens.

I chose Giles’ garden for the shoot because it was about as Dutch-looking a space as I could find - I’d remembered it from previous visits. Giles was dubious, but that may be a measure of how accustomed to Dutch vernacular architecture he is after 30 years in the country. Also, I wanted to not do it in front of a windmill.

Selena and Frank, photographed at Deutsches Eck, Koblenz.

I’ve known Selena for long enough that I don’t know how I know her - she grew up in my part of Oxford, and we always seemed to have a lot of mutual friends.
Frank is Selena’s husband. She would probably say the same about him - that they’ve known each other for so long that they don’t quite know how (in fact when I asked them, they had to discuss how they actually met). Frank is a native of Ransbach - Baumbach, just outside Koblenz, and grew up just round the corner from the home he and Selena now share.

They seem incredibly at ease and comfortable with one another and, yet, gently and lovingly, continue their respective countries’ traditions of taking the Mickey out of one another.

It struck me that this aspect of their relationship - a mature and jovial rivalry that nevertheless acknowledged their interdependance - was a pretty good metaphor for the EU as a whole. Definitely different individuals, but stronger together.

For the portrait I decided to shoot at the Deutsches Eck - the confluence of the rivers Mosel and Rhine, and from which Koblenz took its name in Roman times. Confluence. The joining of two roads. It seemed appropriate, obvious, perhaps, to celebrate freedom and unity with the joining of two great rivers.

“Let’s meet in Schengen. By the piece of the old Berlin wall. Under the bridge, by the river. You can’t miss it.” Well, where better than Schengen, the place that gives its name to the whole borderless travel area of Europe?
It’s tiny - there’s nothing here except the visitor’s centre and the Place Des Etoiles commemorating the signing of the Schengen agreement.
Linda, from Slovakia, and her husband Jonathan (from France) and their two children were joined by Ruth, a Scot with Luxembourg nationality. They’re in Luxembourg. In the background to the left is Germany, and to the right is France. I don’t suppose the placing of these pieces of the wall - with a gap between them, facing the triple border - is any sort of accident.

Meet Wim, from Antwerp.
Wim is a life-long Anglophile, ever since his first visit to the UK when he watched Nottingham Forest - the champions of Europe - play.
Many of his friends and family really don’t get it, but he loves us*. Well, mainly Bowie and Nottingham Forest, and National Trust houses. Oh, and our comedy, and our food, and our cities… He and his friends visit the UK for their summer holiday every year. His enthusiasm for my country is infectious and his knowledge bordering on the encyclopaedic.

Needless to say, he doesn’t think that Brexit is a very good idea.

*With the exception of some of our politicians, for whom he reserves some choice anglo Saxon insults.

Thomas Noone - dancer and choreographer.
Thomas lives in Barcelona, and his wife is Catalan. His work has taken him all over the world and, although he was born and raised in England, he no longer feels very English.
For Thomas, Brexit brings sadness that his home has become a place that is counter to the values he grew up with, although he admits that he will likely only suffer the burden of extra, time-consuming paperwork as a result. Others, he feels, will not escape so lightly.

Ann Mulrooney
Ann is Director of Visual Carlow, the city’s art gallery and theatre complex.
Her job often includes bringing in artists and collections from all across Europe. Without free movement the gallery would struggle to attract meaningful work - at the very least it would be a lot harder for the staff to do their jobs.
Fortunately for her, Brexit will probably impact the gallery very little. Ireland will still be in the EU and most of the other countries she regularly deals with will be no harder to work in or alongside after the UK leaves. That’s just the way it is.

The Journeymen.
On my way from Ian and Gosia’s house to Greta and Zulfi’s place, I passed a strangely-dressed couple thumbing a lift. As luck would have it I recognised them instantly as German Journeymen - craftsmen (and women) completing a compulsory period of free wandering between the end of their apprenticeship and the beginning of their careers as masters of their respective crafts - in this case cabinet makers.

I insisted on a photo as their payment for the short lift to the secret, on-foot, free way in to the Cliffs of Moher. They obliged with good humour and enthusiasm, and relatively few pointed jokes about the UK being in need of a new cabinet…

Greta and Zulfi met and fell in love in London. He’s a Geordie of mixed Irish and Pakistani heritage, and she’s Lithuanian. So far, so normal.
They make cycling bags, and end up exporting all over the place - including Europe.

Two years ago, just after the EU referendum, they decided to move to Ireland - for a change of air, a change of scene, a change of pace - and yes, because of uncertainty over Brexit.
They may not stay in Ireland. It’s not perfect for them. They may move to Lithuania, and, just possibly, if they can make it work, move back to the UK. Maybe.

This isn’t a political thing, it’s a personal thing - let’s get that out of the way.
On 29th March 2019, the UK will, as it currently stands, cease to be a member of the European Union. This will almost certainly entail the loss of free movement of British citizens into and around Europe, and vice versa.
It goes without saying that this will be massively disruptive and awkward for a lot of people.

So, while it was still fairly easy to do, I decided to find out what those who might be affected think of this outcome - I decided to make portraits of EU citizens, British or otherwise, in all 28 EU countries. Before March 29th 2019.

That didn’t give me long - I had the idea in late September.

My first stop was the closest and least painful to do: Ireland. No language problems, no passport, no funny plugs or other-side driving.