Manus Recording Project Collective: Farhad Bandesh, Farhad Rahmati, Samad Abdul, Shamin­dan Kana­p­athi, Thanush Selvraj, Yasin Abdallah, Abdul Aziz Muhamat, Behrouz Boochani, Kazem Kazemi, Michael Green, André Dao, Jon Tjhia

LISTEN TO THE MANUS RECORDING PROJECT COLLECTIVE

*HOW ARE YOU TODAY

• Since 2013, nearly two thou­sand men have been indef­i­nitely detained on Manus Island, PNG, by the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment – after arriv­ing in this coun­try seek­ing asylum. When the Manus Regional Pro­cess­ing Centre was for­mally closed on 31 Octo­ber 2017, after the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court declared it uncon­sti­tu­tional, the men still detained there were ordered to relo­cate to new, smaller deten­tion cen­ters in Loren­gau, the major town on Manus. The author­i­ties elim­i­nated pro­vi­sions and removed the diesel gen­er­a­tors pow­er­ing the facil­ity, but the men refused to leave: the cul­mi­na­tion of years of organ­ised resis­tance against their invol­un­tary and indef­i­nite deten­tion. Even­tu­ally, they were force­fully evicted.

Since 24 July 2018, six men – Farhad Bandesh, Behrouz Boochani, Samad Abdul, Shamindan Kanapathi, Kazem Kazemi and Abdul Aziz Muhamat – have been sending daily ten minute audio recordings to The Ian Potter Museum of Art from Manus Island, where they have been detained by the Australian government for the last five years. The recordings are then played back in the gallery throughout the day. This continued until 28 October 2018 at the end of which 14 hours of sound was produced, in effect, an archive of what it sounds like to live in limbo.

how are you today opens a chan­nel for a form of speech at a moment when words seem to have been exhausted. It is at once an extremely inti­mate work – a rare oppor­tu­nity to listen to these men lis­ten­ing, only very recently, some four thou­sand kilo­me­tres away – and a highly polit­i­cal one. It intro­duces the Manus sound­scape to the gallery not just for the sake of the sounds-in-them­selves, not just as a matter of curios­ity (though the work will surely pro­duce an archive of real his­tor­i­cal value), but in a way that directly impli­cates the lis­tener and demands that we attend to the politico-legal con­texts that pro­duce and frame them.

*WHERE ARE YOU TODAY

Every day for a month, beginning on 1 August, you’ll receive a text message with a new ten-minute audio recording from Farhad Bandesh, Farhad Rahmati, Samad Abdul, Shamindan Kanapathi, Thanush Selvraj or Yasin Abdallah.

Subscribe by texting ‘Hello’ to +61 488 845 951

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.

‘For this recording, of course, there will be people who find it boring, and they won’t want to listen. But there are many people here, who just sit down and try to understand. They close their eyes, just to imagine the people in Manus, and try to make a connection with the men, in Manus. And that’s why I think this work is very interesting … it takes the audience inside the prison camp, just to live with them for a while. To witness their lives. Another thing really that is very important, is that this system treats us in a way where we do not exist. But we do exist. Sometimes we exist in Australia, through these artworks, you know. That part is very surreal. That is the important thing about this work. That it allows us to say: here we are.’

Behrouz Boochani, in conversation
with André Dao about how are you today,
3 December 2019.

[8:36 pm, 16/11/2019] Michael Green:
How are things in the hotel?
[7:01 pm, 17/11/2019] Yasin Abdallah:
Still waiting ...

How does this work?

As a subscriber of where are you today, you’ll receive a daily text message containing a link to each day’s ten-minute recording. The site will display 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 have elapsed since the recording* was made.

BIOGRAPHIES

FARHAD BANDESH is a 38-year-old Kurdish musician, painter and poet who was detained on Manus Island for six years, and now for more than a year in the Mantra Hotel and Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA). Before seeking asylum, he worked as a guitar maker. He has no formal art training; whilst in detention, he has produced solo and collaborative works of music, art and writing. He loves nature and is a keen gardener; his sisters now look after his plants.

FARHAD RAHMATI is 42 years old. He is a civil engineer from Khorramabad City in Iran. He was forcibly sent to Manus Island in 2013 and then evacuated to Australia in 2019 to be treated for a heart condition he developed in PNG. He was held at Kangaroo Point Central Hotel for eight months, where, from his balcony, he watched people walking their dogs on the outside. In June, he was moved to Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation (BITA).

SAMAD ABDUL was detained in an Aus­tralian run off­shore deten­tion centre on Manus for five years. For the last two years he has been in Port Moresby, where he is still not free. He loves cricket and his only dream was to be a pro­fes­sional crick­eter but politi­cians have taken his dream and used him as a polit­i­cal pris­oner. Although his seven years will not come back, he now wants to be a social worker to help those who are in pain.

SHAMIN­DAN KANA­P­ATHI is a Sri Lankan Tamil refugee. In Sri Lanka he was a mar­ket­ing exec­u­tive and a stu­dent. He was detained on Manus Island for six years and is now held in Port Moresby.

THANUSH SELVRAJ is a 32-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil refugee who fled persecution. In Sri Lanka he was a painter, artist, hairdresser, phone and computer repairer, photo and video editor and a student. He was detained on Manus Island before being transferred to Port Moresby hotel detention. From PNG he was transferred to the Mantra Hotel in Preston, Melbourne. He is currently being held in MITA with no hope of his freedom.

YASIN ABDALLAH is a 24-year-old man from Darfur, Sudan, from the Zaghawa ethnicity. He arrived in Australia by boat in 2013 and was taken to Manus Island. He has been detained in Mantra Hotel in Preston, Melbourne, for one year. When he was a teenager in Sudan, he used to fix cars with his uncle. He wants to be a mechanical engineer.

ANDRÉ DAO is a writer of fic­tion and non-fic­tion. He is the co-founder of Behind the Wire, an oral his­tory project doc­u­ment­ing people’s expe­ri­ence of immi­gra­tion deten­tion.

JON TJHIA is a radio-maker, artist and writer. As the Wheeler Centre’s senior dig­i­tal editor, he col­lab­o­ra­ted with Behind the Wire to pro­duce The Mes­sen­ger. He’s a co-founder of Paper Radio and the Aus­tralian Audio Guide.

MICHAEL GREEN is a writer, radio-maker and pro­ducer. He was the host of The Mes­sen­ger pod­cast, which won the 2017 Walk­ley Award for Radio/​Audio fea­ture. He trav­elled to Manus Island twice.

Two members of the Manus Recording Project Collective, who made recordings for how are you today (2018), are no longer detained by the Australian government. ABDUL AZIZ MUHAMAT is now in Geneva, where he was granted asylum by the Swiss Government. BEHROUZ BOOCHANI is now in Christchurch, New Zealand. A third member of the collective, KAZEM KAZEMI, is still being detained at Kangaroo Point Central Hotel in Brisbane. Kazem decided not to make recordings for where are you today.

Documentation