Wilfred Carter

We Have Guests has been active for over a year, and will continue to be a long-form project until our guests may return to Ukraine free from the persecutions of war.

The project began as my way of supporting Ukrainians within my local community. In the opening months of the war, I began volunteering at local refugee support centres run by charities and churches, and began having conversations with Ukrainians. I entered into this without any expectations as to what the project would be, or whether my practice would bring any benefit at all. But after listening with these stories, I realised that they needed to be told, and Ukrainians wanted to tell them. I also wanted to educate British people on what life is really like for Ukrainians, and the realities of being a refugee within their communities.

Since April of 2022, I have attended close to 100 support meetings and have spoken in-depth to over 50 Ukrainians about their experiences and stories. To this day, I attend two support meetings a week, seeing many who feature in the project weekly, if not monthly.

From the very start, it was important that they were represented how they wanted to be represented. So, they have been involved in which imagery has been selected, and which parts of their story are written. Any imagery or text they did not want featured in print, is not in the book and project. The book has become a collaborative project, driven by Ukrainian voices. All I wanted to do was to provide the platform.

It is a project close to my heart, and one that continues to evolve alongside Ukrainians, rather than above or away from them.