From Survival to Solidarity: A Portrait of Protest

What does it mean to hold space for someone else’s story, for a movement, for a moment, or for a memory too heavy to carry alone?

On a bank holiday Monday in Aberystwyth, as coastal light washed across Owain Glyndŵr Square, it had become a backdrop for something both urgent and deeply human. Thirty-nine activist groups gathered to protest and stood in solidarity against the U.S. President Donald Trump’s reported proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Libya–a plan that, while denied by officials, had already ignited global condemnation and, in this quiet Welsh town, a stunning show of unity. 

Thrtyfive was there, with camera in hand. But more importantly, we were there with Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth Morley is the daughter of a genocide survivor. Her presence at the protest, representative of the generational echo of war aftermath, not only added weight, it rewrote the narrative. She is a secondary living testimony that forced displacement is not just a concept, a political headline, or a discourse–it’s a personal, lifelong inheritance. She is a reminder that empathy is not abstract–it’s embodied. It shows up, stands still, and holds signs and memories in the same hands. That behind every political statement is a human scar. That after the slow violence of erasure comes the pain of building a new life atop buried ruins. And when she stood in the centre of the crowd, surrounded by banners, samba beats, and choirs singing for Gaza, her presence transformed the protest into something larger than visual testimony: a generational resonance.

Photographing Elizabeth was an honour and a responsibility. At Thrtyfive, we are known for storytelling. But sometimes the story chooses you. Sometimes, your camera becomes a vessel for history that cannot go undocumented. 

In Elizabeth’s eyes, you could see the past and present blur. The grief of one war speaks to another. The exile of one people reverberates in the displacement of another. And the resilience? It is shared too, passed like a torch from survivor to protestor, from Wales to Palestine. 

As photographers, we often speak about light–chasing it, shaping it, manipulating it. But on that Monday, light meant truth. And resistance was given a face.  

The protest itself was a mosaic of solidarity: 39 groups. Dozens of signs. A vigil, a soundscape of drums, an audio message from Tulkarm refugee camp. It was not loud in the way protests often are. It was something more subtle, more reverent–a communal standing still, and a refusal to look away. 

And neither did we. We documented not just the gathering, but the glances, the silences, the slow burn of remembrance, the silhouettes of lamentation. Because protest isn’t always about volume, but more about presence. And photography, when done with intent, can immortalise that presence in ways words cannot. 

This blog isn’t just about the protest. It’s a homage to Elizabeth. It's about photography as a form of witness. The past is not past–not for the displaced, the exiled, the survivors. But if the camera has any power at all, it is this: a reminder that history doesn’t have to repeat itself if we are brave enough to document, to share, and to stand beside one another. 

We weren't there to spotlight pain, but to honour dignity. To say: she showed up, and so did we. 

Let the frame speak. Because solidarity may begin in the streets, but it continues in how we remember and carry it.