LIKE, 2020
Selected for the 2020 Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards shortlist and received the Jurors’ Special Mention.
LIKE explores the physical and digital relationships of the migrant workers who build the infrastructure of Oman, a rapidly modernizing country rich in oil and natural gas. These men, predominantly from East Africa and the Indian subcontinent, communicate using widely available, low-cost smartphones that help them cope with the social isolation they face while living in camps for years. As quickly as new friends are made, others disappear without a trace, never to be heard from again: workers are deported for various reasons, or shuffled around to different camps throughout the region.
The book includes an essay by Jason Koxvold entitled Raw Material: Capital and Exploitation at the Neoliberal Frontier, which lays out the work in the context of the history of representation of labour in art.