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Duty of Care

Beneath a plane two dots are circled in red. Text pointing to them reads: 'Didn't drown at sea'.

This simple, tragic image reflects on Australia’s controversial long-time policy of turning away or detaining asylum seekers who arrive by boat, through the prism of the 2021 emergency evacuation from Afghanistan. John Kudelka uses the horror of desperate stowaways falling from an aircraft’s undercarriage over Kabul to challenge the argument that refusing to take particular refugees is saving lives.

- Karen Middleton, guest curator