Open Britain: Migrant voices take centre stage in JJ Keith’s new photography exhibit
Open Britain: Migrant voices take centre stage in JJ Keith’s new photography exhibit
01 May 2025
The exhibit includes 21 photographs of staff from across our hospitals, including nurses, porters, play specialists, midwives and a chaplain.
Keith spent three days visiting our hospitals, photographing and interviewing NHS staff who are first-generation migrants.
“It affirmed my belief in what a wonderful institution the NHS is. There is such an incredible, vibrant and diverse selection of people who work there,” he said.
Keith started photographing people across the UK just over two years ago as part of his project Open Britain.
Four months into the project, in June 2023, while photographing a German psychoanalyst for the project, he was awakened to the relevance of his own migration story to this work. Keith had previously thought of his own background – his father was a Jewish refugee in the Second World War – merely as ‘a convenient backstory’ to this project.
He said: “Talking to her was very emotional, I realised he is the motivation and the reason why I’ve embraced it so wholeheartedly and why I’m so passionate about it,” he shared. “It’s a subject close to my heart.”
To date, he has photographed over 145 migrants who have settled in the UK.
“Talking to her was very emotional, I realised he is the motivation and the reason why I’ve embraced it so wholeheartedly and why I’m so passionate about it. It’s a subject close to my heart.”
JJ Keith
The photographs are all taken, so the person in the image is staring directly into the eyes of the viewer. He said: “It’s a stylistic choice of mine to have them fully confrontational, directly looking down the lens. I want people to feel like they’re meeting them.”
One of Keith’s favourite photos in the exhibition is that of Matron and Theatre Manager Rhona, from the Philippines, who had to leave her family behind when she moved to London: “She was so lovely and friendly and open. We were in a little washroom off an operating theatre, and the lighting was excellent, so I got loads of really good shots.”
“She told me how she left her young child behind in the Philippines when she was recruited by the NHS. It was very emotional. But her story came full circle because her daughter went through medical school and is now joining St Mary’s Hospital as a doctor. It’s a wonderful circular story.”
So far, Keith has collaborated with various refugee charities, including TERN, The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network, and has further collaborations in the pipeline.
The exhibition is on display at the entrance of Charing Cross Hospital until August 2025. Find out more on our arts page.
