Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 4, No. 3, Spring 2020 | Page 38

THE RIGHT(S) TO REMAIN
(see Human Rights Watch 2018), mandatory detention and offshore processing continue
to be implemented and endorsed by successive Australian governments.
The policies and practices surrounding refugees and asylum seekers in Australia not only
render their stories largely invisible but continue to perpetrate harm and suffering which
goes unaddressed. Access to detention centres and information about the conditions
under which people are detained is highly restricted by the Australian Government,
creating a climate of “oppressive secrecy” (Legal and Constitutional Affairs References
Committee 2017:9). Information and reports of abuse surface only as a result of irregular
leaks or media discovery. Interviews with refugees and people seeking asylum
conducted by civil society organisations tend to focus on specific incidences, limiting
the possibility for people to share the range of their experiences. When these accounts
appear in the media, people are often dehumanised and described as statistics, which
both contribute to reductive stereotypes about refugees and fuels political debates over
border security. As a consequdeence, the majority of the Australian population are neither
aware of, nor necessarily comprehend, the dire human consequences of the state’s
immigration policies, with many reporting a lack of agency to effect change (Reilly, Appleby,
and Laforgia 2014). The state and its citizens are complicit, both explicitly and
tacitly, in the abuse of refugees and people seeking asylum in offshore detention centres.
In the absence of state protection, artistic representation becomes an important intervention
into the practices and narratives surrounding Australia’s treatment of refugees
and asylum seekers. Hoda Afshar’s video artwork Remain (2018) (Figures 1 and 2) is
a case in point. Remain documents the experiences and struggles of a group of stateless
men who have been left to languish on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, after the Australian
government closed its Manus Regional Processing Centre in 2017.
The closure of the centre occurred largely as a result of political pressure after the Papua
New Guinea Supreme Court ruled that the “processing” (detaining) of refugees and asylum
seekers in Australian-funded immigration centres was unconstitutional and illegal
because this detention restricted the rights, freedoms, and dignity of people in the centre
(see Tepu 2016; Tlozek 2016). The Manus detention centre had been the longstanding
site of physical and psychological abuse, including inhumane living conditions and violence
against the detained men (Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee
2017:5–9; Mohamed 2018). After its closure, many of the men were forcibly removed to
“transit centres” (detention centres by another name), where they still remain, trapped
in enduring limbo. Physically absent from Australian territory these men continue to be
subjected to the state’s punitive immigration system; mistreatment which is prolonged
and compounded by obfuscated state responsibility and diplomatic power struggles.
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