Maybe…

Wednesday 16th December – I arrived in the migrant/refugee camp at Calais today to start shooting a two-week project that will see me here until 29th December. In the six weeks since I was here last The Jungle has grown and changed beyond recognition – any empty areas in the main camp, no matter how seemingly unusable they looked, have now been filled with tents and makeshift shelters. At the far end of the camp, a patch of sand dunes that was home for over a thousand Eritreans, has been flattened and cleared to build semi-permanent cabins of some kind. The estimated number of people in The Jungle is now 8,000, which I can well believe.

This is the second Banksy work of art Calais has been treated to, it’s in The Jungle, on the wall of the under-pass at the entrance of the camp. A Somalian man has pitched a tent right next to it, covered it with a sheet and is charging people €2 to see it. Excellent work, I say – if one man with nothing can make a few Euro a day out of a man with millions, I salute him.

In the next few days French officials will spend thousands of Euros putting a frame and protective reenforced glass screen over the artwork to ‘protect it from the elements’ – the irony of that is f**king staggering and unbelievable…