To Set Fire To The Sea

For her exhibition “to set fire to the sea”, Sinead Kennedy has visited immigration detention centres and documented conversations with detainees to capture a humanising glimpse of life in detention. The matching monochrome walls and flooring in the ACU Gallery provide an illusion of clean purity. Beyond this façade, Sinead Kennedy’s photography of everyday objects reveals a stark humanity. The photographs at first glance are minimal and, almost sterile. Yet there lies more. Accompanying each photograph is a description of its context, taken from conversations with the detained asylum seekers. There is the story of Richman who had only met his son when he was four years old, and was allowed to only spend thirteen days together with him. There is Nima who “has four qualifications and likes to play the violin” and has been in detention for over five years. Their stories are respectively illustrated through an uneven grid of photographs of a lunchbox, a coat hanger and a mirror for the former, and a scattered array of playing cards for the latter. These story excerpts are touching and harrowing. Then there is the wide photographic shot with what may have been the central figure overlaid by a black square, the text beside the image describing the self-immolation of Omid Masoumali. The objects in these photographs; neutral plastic containers of pills, an unmade bed, and used Styrofoam tea cups, are transformed by these accompanied captions. Simple objects become loaded reminders of trauma. They become personified in relation to the people the artist has collaborated with. In Australian media the language surrounding asylum seekers is notoriously dehumanising. On display in the show there is a graphic novel that was printed in Arabic used to deter asylum seekers from travelling to Australia. It is through language and rhetoric that these groups have been further alienated. Sinead Kennedy’s exhibit does the reverse in that humanity is restored language and storytelling. It is a simple but powerful gesture. The mundanity of the objects presented unites audience and subject. Although they are given traumatic associations, our use of them is common. Therefore the trauma is shared; their stories become ours as Australians who are already connected through a xenophobic government and culture. To stun someone through a simple photograph of toast or a key is a sure sign of success. Sinead Kennedy is a clever storyteller, in creating a show that audiences not only can read, feel and know, but participate consciously in. Words and photographs by Danielle Divola.