Not an Extra

What happens to a life that history treats as an Extra??

In a world that often treats displaced people as mere statistics, artist Portia Roy invites us to look more closely. She brings "the Extras" to the centre, those migrant workers, refugees, and families who move not by choice, but because survival demands it.

Roy's work explores the gap between voluntary movement and forced displacement. Using materials such as plywood and recycled cardboard, often associated with packing and transit, she draws attention to the temporary and precarious conditions many displaced people inhabit. The act of carving itself is violent and physical, matching the pain her subjects carry. Each rough line speaks to exhaustion, loss, and the weight of journeys that never truly end.

This exhibition is a quiet act of witnessing. It asks us to see what we often overlook: the human being behind the number and the story behind the statistic. Roy does not celebrate resilience; she records survival. Her art scratches away the invisibility imposed on people whose labour sustains our world, yet whose dignity is rarely acknowledged.