As the French refugee camp known as the ‘Jungle’ faces demolition, graphic artist Nick Hayes documents the lives of its inhabitants, and the homes, shops and churches they built in an atmosphere of fear and hope
The refugee camp known as the Calais “Jungle” is in the process of being destroyed, and with it a self-governing community that belied the squalor of its environment. I went there for a week over Christmas last year, and stayed for a month. After a couple of days in the warehouse, I found a job at the Ashram kitchen where I chopped onions and served chai for three weeks. The final week was spent creating drawings for an NGO that wanted to tell the stories of the people in the camp, a bid to humanise the individual from the “swarm”. The NGO was aware that many of the migrants felt uneasy around cameras, so they wanted drawings rather than photographs.
The kitchen has now been dismantled, and the camp around it flattened by bulldozers. I swapped Facebook details with the people I drew, so I could send on the image. The majority of those I met have since been dispersed by coach to various parts of France and Germany, and their photos appear on my Facebook wall. Sometimes they are smiling in front of ornate fountains, or bored on the back seats of buses, and at other times they are taking selfies in police cells and detention centres, or filming chaotic footage of brutality from the authorities. And some have made it to Britain.
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