Denis Vejas
Vilnius, Lithuania
Denis Vejas (1986 Lithuania) is a Vilnius-based documentary photographer, and visual storyteller.
Big part of my work has been done in nomadic settings, living the experiences that the road brings.
As a photographer and a traveler, I always felt attracted by the things happening on the peripheries of the global world, focusing on the social outskirts and the spaces that are commonly marginalized.
Artwork presentation
The Direction North is my long-term project, documenting the journey of undocumented migrants from Central America on their way through Mexico to the US.
There are no accurate numbers of people who enter Mexico illegally, however, it is estimated by civil rights organizations that the number might be up to 400 thousand a year.
Most of them are trying to escape violence in their homelands, and hoping to start a new life in the USA. The journey may take up to three months and holds risks of various kinds for undocumented migrants. Along the way, many of these men, women, and children are facing assaults, robbery, and abduction, as almost a half million undocumented individuals a year makes an easy target for organized crime groups, controlling the routes.
While working on these series, I have been riding cargo trains, spending nights in the train stations, volunteering in the refugee’s shelters, and finally documenting part of the wall in Tijuana, which poses a certain kind
of symbolism at the end of the road.
