Photography, Migration and the Spaces Between

Guest blog by Leo Wang, PhD researcher, University of Birmingham

Shuttles is an independent photography collection dedicated to migrant creators, founded and run by early-career researchers.

Shuttles began with something almost accidental. On a whim, we once organised a small photography exhibition – selecting shared themes and placing our works in dialogue with one another around the experience of migration. What started as a private experiment, a self-initiated exchange, unexpectedly attracted audiences from both artistic and academic communities. More importantly, it sparked thoughtful and generous conversations about how creative practice carries, reshapes, and transmits migrant experiences and memories. We realised that when individual experiences are placed side by side, new meanings emerge. Images do not simply document migration; they participate in constructing it. Within dialogue, something more and deeper begins to take form.

In the process of crossing countries, institutions, and cultural borders, many memories remain private, fragmented, and unarchived. Shuttles seeks to create a visible space for these experiences — an open, low-threshold online platform where independent work can be seen, encountered, and discussed. We value the complexity of migrant memory and lived experience — not only as part of individual life histories but also as forces that continuously shape social imagination, cultural perception, and public narratives. 

Shuttles currently takes the form of an online journal, and each issue revolves around a specific theme. We sent out our first open call themed “home” on 17^th March, 2026, and published our first issue on 30^th April, with submissions from all over the world, from Africa to the Pacific. Through their works—some closely observing the details of everyday life, others transforming memories into experimental forms—our contributors create a space to discuss, rethink, and redefine the concept of home. The link to our first issue: https://www.shuttlesphotography.com/issues/01

And now, the open call for the second issue, themed “on the road”, is alive. To make a submission, please fill out this form by the 19th of June: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1OJCuFIQI6BRXp8oI0TMLBhTml5E6u0BdNelLQugOxdU/edit?pli=1

More information available on our website: https://www.shuttlesphotography.com/open-call/issue-02