How are displaced populations represented throughout the history of photography, from the first ethnographic registers made by Europeans of natives and enslaved persons in the early 20th century to today’s images of refugees worldwide? Following this question, the work investigates especially the role of the texts accompanying images of forcedly displaced individuals, what prejudices and racial biases are involved in this “taxonomical” process, and how these images are classified, sorted and archived. 

Using different techniques – from early albumin prints to acrylic glass prints –, digital images of displaced populations in the 21st century available online acquire a physical materiality. Hence, preserved as objects which can be reproduced in a distant future, they embody a sort of ‘immortality’ particular of these analog techniques, and the once pixelated .jpgs gain an afterlife beyond their digital ephemerality.