Hard to Place

Photographs: Qiana Mestrich
Text: Qiana Mestrich
Publisher: Self published, printed by Conveyor Arts
60 pages
With illustrations throughout
Year: 2016
Edition of 75
Price: $50
Paperback, 8.5 x 6 in

Hard To Place is a true story about race, family and the child welfare system in post-war Britain.

Combining confidential, UK government documentation with archival and (auto)biographical photography, this series traces the experience of Joseph, an orphan boy of Nigerian and Irish parentage growing up in 1960s/70s London. As a “half-cast(e)” child, in England, Joseph was considered “hard to place” amongst the mostly white, adoptive families.

Joseph is my husband. The little boy seen in Hard To Place is our son. The images in the book provide a visual alternative to the official, master narrative of child welfare that many mixed-race children are imprisoned by.

— Qiana Mestrich

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