Against Erasure: Digital Witnessing of Manus Island Detention Centre
Overview
This project is developing a digital representation of dismantled immigration detention centre at Lombrom, Manus Island, Papua New Guinea (PNG), for completion November 2020. Importantly, this will be the first known 3D model of the detention centre, making a significant contribution to collective knowledge about the facility and the island on which it was based. The centre was effectively a prison for approximately 1500 men from 2013 until 2017. In 2016, the PNG Supreme Court ordered it to be ‘closed,’ as its existence breached the PNG constitution. The detention camp was dismantled, as if it had never existed. Yet twelve men had died there due to violence, homicide, self-harm, suicide or untreated medical concerns. Many experienced pain and torture during their detainment. The work will function as a testament to these men, and a testimony of their suffering. It will examine the processes enabling erasure, as if the violence that occurred there never happened.
Outcomes / activities
Agonistes exhibition, with artist Hoda Afshar
Commissioned by Photo Australia from PHOTO 2021 International Festival of Photography
Agonistes is based on the experiences of several men and women – former employees in the areas of immigration, intelligence service, defence force, youth detention, disability care, and other government agencies – who chose to speak out [against alleged wrongdoing or misconduct in detention centres], and who now live with the consequences.
More information
- Hoda Afshar. “To bear witness in dangerous times,” on Pursuit, October 2019
- Hoda Afshar. Remain video and portrait series, 2018