A personal documentary series about who gets to belong in a city, photographed in Abu Dhabi and first shown at Photobook Café in London.
Around nine in ten people living in the United Arab Emirates are foreign nationals. Most are migrant workers on contracts tied to a single employer, with no route to citizenship however long they stay.
Members Only was photographed in Abu Dhabi. Emirati men over coffee in an air-conditioned mall, and the men building the next tower along, working through the night. They share a city and almost nothing else.
I shot both from a distance, through glass and over hoardings, because that is the distance the city keeps. The series was first shown at Photobook Café in London.