London Media Lab - photography and pitching

London Media Lab - photography and pitching

Join us for a Media Lab on bringing our untold stories to life, through two sessions focusing on photography and pitching our stories to the media. Let’s come together to tell our stories and shape the public discourse on migration as we see it. We promise a day full of learning and fun.

When: 25 April 1:00 - 7.00 pm
Where: Migrant Voice,
Voluntary Action  Islington,
200a Pentonville Road, London, N1 9JP

1:00-4:00pm Photography Workshop - with visual artist Sara Shamsavari

Join artist Sara Shamsavari for a photography workshop exploring your experience of immigration and the issues you want to see change. Bring an object to photograph that represents something about an immigration issue personal to you. During the workshop we will explore the possibilities of photography in sharing stories of migration and/or how they can be used as messages for campaigning for fairer migration rules

4:00-7:00pm Pitching your story idea to the media -  With Journalist Daniel Nelson

• 4:00-4:30pm Introduction to pitching

• 4:30-7:00pm individual Pitching Mentoring sessions

Many important stories about our lives as migrants and our experiences of migration go untold. Do you have an idea for a story you want to pitch to the media? This session will help you learn new skills or polish an existing skill and better navigate the British media.

Most of the workshop takes the form of individual half-hour sessions. Bring your pitch or idea, meet one-on-one with Daniel Nelson and refine and complete the pitch ready to send to the media.

As it is necessary to sign up for an individual time - Please email ismail@migrantvoice.org to sign up for the training and confirm your slot.

Trainers bios: 

Sara Shamsavari is an award winning British- Iranian artist based in London. Through her photographic and painting projects, Sara explores themes of global identity, migration, inclusion and transformation as well as the universal themes of love and family. Born in the midst of the Iranian Revolution, Sara recovered from infant cancer while fleeing war and impending persecution of her family in Iran and was granted asylum at the age of two in the UK where she is now based. Her early experience surviving war and her rich heritage continue to inform her artistic subject matter.

Sara’s work is housed among the permanent collections of several international museums and foundations including MoCP (Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago) and NoVo Foundation. Sara regularly lectures at Central Saint Martins on art, ethics, photography, migration and social change. Her work has been widely published in books and media including Aperture, The Guardian, New York Times and Vogue.

Daniel Nelson has written for and edited newspapers, magazines, news agencies and web operations in Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, The Philippines, Uganda, UK and elsewhere, and worked for and acted as consultant to many not-for-profit organisations, from the International Baby Food Action Network to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and, in recent years, for Migrant Voice.

Daniel is an experienced trainer, having run workshops in Accra, Berlin, Dar es Salaam, Dhaka, Douala, Kampala, Kuala Lumpur, London and in many other countries. During his long involvement with journalists’ training he has run courses in Africa and Asia for, among other organisations, the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development, the Commonwealth Press Union, the Commonwealth Journalists Association, the Press Foundation of Asia and the Thomson Foundation. For several years he was a part-time lecturer at London’s City University.

We look forward to welcoming you soon,

The Migrant Voice Team