Cold Storage
(2001)
1500 boxes each 700 x 400 x 400mm, marker
Cold
Storage was developed in response to the Australian Government's
recent hard line tactics towards the people seeking asylum in this
country. For several years now, people reaching our shores in a desperate
attempt to flee persecution and poverty in their own country, have
been incarcerated - sometimes for years on end.
This piece turned the gallery space into a pseudo warehouse. Over 1500 large
cardboard boxes are stacked floor to ceiling in a tight maze-like fashion. Each
box is labelled in handwriting with the name of a possible asylum seeker. The
name is iconic of the idea of the person it is assumed to represent and the hand
script a reminder that the vitriolic law of detention reflects an action inflicted
by humans on humans.