Plight of immigrants in focus at Brisbane exhibition

Law said the subjects included two men unknowingly born in New Zealand who were subsequently deported from Australia.

“It was only because they ran into trouble in their later years that they were deported and realised they weren’t actually Australian citizens,” she said.

Another story involved a Sri Lankan held at the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation Centre who had been fighting for freedom for more than 10 years.

Law said the exhibition focused on family members who experienced trauma, including an Iranian mother who moved her family to Australia.

“Through [her son’s time in immigration detention], he ended up committing petty crime and wound up in prison,” she said. “The mother has been the one that holds the trauma.”

Law said the woman, known as Baaraa in the exhibition, moved her family to Brisbane to stay close to her son until he was moved to a Sydney prison.

“It was this whole saga of we will be with our son and brother and support him through that,” she said.

“His mother feels like, ‘If he is going to be deported, I’m going to leave because he doesn’t have the language. The kids don’t have that knowledge of Iran.’

“She would feel the obligation to go back with him.”

Law said the exhibition followed the pain of five families in Queensland, with museum visitors able to read their handwritten letters.

“The catalyst behind it all started from my mum’s family and her family’s history,” she said.

“Her family was deported in the ’80s from the Sunshine Coast, and for us, it’s been a big trauma in my mum’s history, and it has infiltrated the generations following.”

Law said she wanted the thought-provoking exhibition to spark conversations.

“I want them to ask questions and to be more aware of people’s situations, and not just see them as numbers.”

Ms Law said another participant (known as Kylie) was put into foster care in Queensland, including with carers who were known to have faced charges of child sexual abuse.

“Kylie was very much like, ‘well, people see me as a criminal because I’ve been in prison, but they don’t understand that I grew up in a system that abused me’,” she said.

“[She said] ‘I’m not that bad considering what I’ve been through.”

Fractured Dreams & Indefinite Scars opens at the Museum of Brisbane on Friday and runs until April 18. Tammy Law will attend the museum on Wednesdays and Sundays during her time as the artist-in-residence.

Visit the MoB website here.