Summary

Painting entitled 'Bystander Affect' by HEGO (aka Hugh Snelgrove) completed in February 2022. It portrays the protest outside the Park Hotel Carlton where asylum seekers relocated from offshore detention were imprisoned from late 2019 and then gradually released until the final refugees were released in April 2022.

HEGO (aka Hugh Snelgrove) is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Naarm (Melbourne). Hego shares stories and calls people to action with murals, interactive art, photography, zines, collage and documentaries. This work compliments another artwork by HEGO in the collection - a photograph of former South Sudanese child soldier Bol Akoc Buoi.

Physical Description

Watercolour and acrylic on canvas.

Significance

The Museum's collection holds ephemera and photographs documenting refugee issue protests since the 1990s. This painting by a well-known local artist helps to represent this recent and high profile protest.

This painting documents a significant story in the history of Australia's treatment of asylum seekers and the importance of community protest in seeking to change detention policy and procedures. In 2020 the Australian Government through Australian Border Force leased the Park Hotel on Lygon Street in Carlton to use as a detention facility for 46 asylum seekers who had been removed from offshore detention via the Medivac legislation (this legislation was later revoked in December 2019). They had first been detained from November 2019 at the Mantra Hotel in Preston. Detainees were gradually released over time from 2021 on temporary bridging visas with the final eight men released on 8 April 2022. Protesters gathered outside the hotel throughout the duration of the asylum seekers' imprisonment, with protest signs and banners and a 'freedom cage' in which well known Australians were locked as a symbol of solidarity. The issue garnered international attention when Serbian tennis play Novak Djokovic was detained at the Park Hotel during the Australian Open in January 2022.

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