Michael Green

Manus Recording Project Collective

mbg — Sun, 10 Nov 2019 12:08:51 +0000

where are you today, 2020 [sound installation]. Every day throughout August, subscribers received a text message with a new ten-minute audio recording from Farhad Bandesh, Farhad Rahmati, Samad Abdul, Shamindan Kanapathi, Thanush Selvraj or Yasin Abdallah.

These men, seeking asylum by boat, were forcibly transferred to Manus Island by the Australian government nearly seven years ago. Now, they are held in hotels or detention centres in Port Moresby, Melbourne or Brisbane.

The site displayed some additional information: the number of kilometres between you and the person who made the recording, and the number of minutes, hours, or days that had elapsed since the recording was made. Listen to the recordings.

Design, build and conceptual support by Public Office. Commissioned and presented by Liquid Architecture. Supported by the City of Melbourne COVID-19 Arts Grants.

Mantra Hotel, Preston. Photo by Yasin Abdallah.

how are you today, 2018. A sound installation comprising an archive of 84 ten-minute field recordings by six men on Manus Island. Developed for the Eavesdropping exhibition at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, with Samad Abdul, Farhad Bandesh, Behrouz Boochani, André Dao, Shamindan Kanapathi, Kazem Kazemi and Jon Tjhia. how are you today was subsequently exhibited at City Gallery, Wellington, and Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland. Listen to the recordings.

how are you today, 2018, at the Ian Potter Museum of Art.

Still Life

mbg — Sat, 19 Oct 2019 12:10:10 +0000

A series of first-person narratives about statelessness, together with still life images. A collaboration with writers André Dao and Nicole Curby and artist Sarah Walker. This project is also an academic collaboration with Associate Professor Jennifer Balint and Dr Ashley Barnwell, from the University of Melbourne, as well as the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness at the Melbourne Law School.

Forthcoming, 2021.

Behind the Wire

mbg — Sun, 08 Jan 2017 12:13:41 +0000

Behind the Wire is an award-winning oral history project documenting the stories of the men, women and children who have been detained by the Australian government after seeking asylum in Australia.

The project comprises a book, an exhibition, a podcast, audio stories, films, a series of portrait photographs, and a large-scale video installation at the NGV International, as part of White Night 2018.

The project won the 2017 Australian Human Rights Commission Media Award and the 2016 Oral History Victoria Community Innovation Award. The Messenger podcast won the Grand Award at the 2017 New York Festivals International Radio Awards, the 2017 Walkley Award for Radio/Audio Feature, and Best Radio – Documentary at the UNAA Media Awards. Our exhibition at the Immigration Museum, They Cannot Take the Sky: Stories from Detention, was chosen for the Contribution to Multiculturalism by a Community Organisation award at the 2017 Melbourne Awards. It also won a 2018 Museums and Galleries National Award for best Temporary or Travelling Exhibition.