In One Thousand Dreams, award-winning photographer Robin Hammond hands the camera to refugees. Often reduced by the media’s toxic or well-meaning narratives, the portraits and interviews capture a different and more complex tale

• ‘Never stop dreaming’: refugees get behind the camera – in pictures

Robin Hammond has spent two decades crisscrossing the developing world and telling other people’s stories. From photographing the Rohingya forced out of Myanmar and rape survivors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to documenting the lives of people in countries where their sexuality is illegal, his work has earned him award after award.

But for his latest project the photographer has embarked on a paradigm shift: to remove himself – and others like him – from the process entirely. Instead, as part of an in-depth exploration of the refugee experience in Europe, the stories of those featured are told by those who, arguably, know them best: other refugees.