Christoph Wachter & Mathias Jud present Landung in Australien, an exploration of refugee and asylum seeker policies.
We perceive ourselves to be in a shrinking world of digital communication and borderless travel. However, this is only a reality for the privileged few, those with civil rights and residence permits, while others are excluded and suppressed.
Those asylum seekers who arrived by boat suffer in pointless undetermined detention. Their trauma continues after having survived dramatic flights and life-threatening boat odysseys. Their existence is used by the Australian authorities merely as a deterrent.
The promises of this shrinking world, the shortening of distances, the opportunities for connection, appear to be crucial. Being able to transmit a sign of life in dire situations is an existential necessity, it decides whether survival is possible or whether humans are left in forced neglect. It prevents marginalised voices from getting swallowed up by the open sea or power political debates.
Wachter and Jud entered Australia with an eVisitor (subclass 651) visa. Landung in Australien showcases the outcomes of a 9-week research project held at the QUT Creative Industries Precinct as part of Move On: European Media Artists in Residence Exchange.
EXHIBITION OPENING: 31 March, 5.00 – 7.00pm
Workshop
Join us on Thursday 9 April at The Glasshouse for free workshop Build Your Own Network
Presented by
QUT Creative Industries Precinct and Christoph Wachter & Mathias Jud.
Supported by
Move On – New Media Art from Australia, Canada and Europe / EMARE Australia Canada is supported by the Culture 2013 program of the European Commission and the Goethe-Institut.