Nathan McGill
Home Grown (2025)
In Home Grown Nathan McGill meets asylum seeker and refugee community groups across Bradford, reflecting on the welcoming spaces the city provides for those seeking sanctuary. Set in green outdoor spaces, including community parks, gardens and allotments, the work captures the quiet, everyday acts of healing and growth. McGill worked with established voluntary groups on allotments, as well as a theatre group dedicated to supporting sanctuary seekers.
Recognised as a City of Sanctuary, Bradford offers welcoming spaces for those seeking safety. Through community groups and local initiatives, sanctuary seekers are greeted with networks of support. For many affected by displacement, these groups offer a sense of stability and the chance to form chosen families, coming together in shared spaces to plant new roots in a new city.
Some of the people photographed chose not to show their faces for reasons of privacy; therefore McGill turned his attention to their hands. Planting seeds, tending to plants, and coaxing new life from the soil, these hands become powerful symbols of resilience and renewal.