Friendships, fishing and community clean-ups: the unseen kindness of life on the Bibby Stockholm barge

Bibby Boys photo exhibition documents experiences of the men who lived on the former asylum seeker vessel in Dorset and the local community that rallied around them

The Bibby Stockholm barge, which was moored off Portland, Dorset, to accommodate asylum seekers, attracted many negative headlines – from evacuation after the discovery of legionella bacteria, to the suicide of Albanian asylum seeker Leonard Farruku and angry far-right protests.

But an exhibition launching this week reveals a less reported side of life on the barge, where enduring connections between asylum seekers and members of the local community were forged and continue long after the last group of asylum seekers left the vessel in November 2024.