Maribyrnong - No Place to Weep

Museum of Contemporary Arts, 2005

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This installation was built to-scale on the dimensions of a cell in the Maribyrnong detention centre for asylum seekers. These details were smuggled out from an inmate through human rights workers to the artist. The conditions in the notorious and controversial facility eventually lead to its closure in 2018 but ten thousand people (including 2,000 children) were in onshore detention when numbers peaked in 2013. The Australian Human Rights Commission’s findings condemned the facility, determining that “..accommodation facilities at the MIDC are not suitable for groups of three to four people, as they do not afford sufficient space or privacy for groups of this size.” The installation deployed Russian Constructivist motifs and forms in reference to a brief moment of time when artists optimistically believed they might influence positive changes to existing systems.

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More info at: https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/exhibitions/interesting-times-focus-on-contemporary-australian-art/