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.