Concealed Borders

Artist Statement:

Concealed Borders represents my experience as a journalist and a political prisoner in the Australian offshore detention center in the island-nation, the Republic of Nauru (2013-2019).

The painting depicts real stories that I witnessed and heard from the imprisoned children whom I interviewed on the island. It was for a campaign called Kids Off Nauru in November 2019, which helped to end the detention of over 150 refugee children and their families. Some of the children were born there and spent their whole lives in detention. Seeing these desperate children and listening to their heartbreaking words gave me terrible nightmares and deeply influenced my art.

Concealed Borders is a visual depiction of my nightmares during that time. Each profile on the canvas is inspired by a real person, and some are influenced by the photos I took. At the center of the painting a camera has torn the cold, frightening fences of the prison and a little further you see a face within it. The face is an abstract profile of politician Peter Dutton, the emotionless monster, blowing fire on his victims and causing human misery. There is a man on fire, the target of the monster, who symbolizes the many victims who have died in Australian detention centers during these years, by suicide or killed by the authorities.

On the top right there is a little Iraqi girl whom I interviewed. She was 12 years old at the time and had been in an accident with a motorcycle. In front of her face there is a coffin; it is behind the fence and belongs to a young Kurdish Iranian man, Fariborz, a 26-year-old former medical student who died in Nauru in an extremely mysterious way. After his death, his uncle, who is an Australia citizen, was trying to bring his corpse to Australia and organize the funeral. But the Australian government did not allow it and kept his corpse in a coffin at the detention center for almost a month. Everyone, including children, were able to see the coffin. The purpose was to let them know that even your corpse will not be allowed in visit Australia. This horrifying story had an enormous impact on the refugees, especially the children. Fariborz was there with his mother and little brother and all the smaller children knew him and were friends of his little brother.

During my conversation with the Iraqi girl, she said: “I’m begging my family to go back to Iraq. I know it’s too dangerous and we will die, but at least we will have graves. I do not want to die, and they keep me in a coffin here like Fariborz. He doesn’t have a grave.”The child’s concern, instead of going to school or having a playground, was not having a grave. This is another reason why all of those children were extremely sick.

At the same time, immigration minister Peter Dutton was completely ignoring the doctors who were trying to transfer these children to the Australia mainland. He accused the parents of forcing their kids into hunger strikes to go to Australia, and unfortunately the vast majority of the Australian media and journalists supported the government. He had the political power, the media control and whatever else he needed to continue the cruelty and injustice in Nauru and Manus. They created propaganda lauding the Liberal Party’s success in “stopping the boats” of refugees, who were painted as potential terrorists, accused of being a burden on the state and stealing jobs from Australians. They used racism and hate to divide Australians and win election after election, engaging in corruption and further empowering themselves and their powerful friends in the process. The real purpose of the Border-Industrial Complex series of paintings is to unpack and dismantle these elements and strategies.