An African asylum seeker calls home. Vienna 2008
So I’m heading back to Vienna! I have received a large grant to complete my work documenting the lives of asylum seekers in Austria and starting on Thursday I will be there for about three months working on several stories as well as a photo essay.
For me the interesting thing, besides the actual work itself, is the long term nature of this project. You know I’ve been working on The Europeans for more than five years now. I started work on the issue of asylum seekers way back in 2008 as a Fulbright Scholar. I then went back to continue work on this project, using my own money, in late 2009. All that work put me in the position of being able to apply for and get a large grant.
See my point? Sometimes it takes years to bring something to fruition. But if you dedicate yourself and keep plugging away you can do what you, want how you want, which to me is pretty much the point of life. It will be a challenging trip but just as my previous work prepared me to get this grant it has also laid the foundation for my research so I won’t be going into this completely blind. I’m looking forward to sharing a lot of great images with you!
