adrift (2019)

adrift (2019) is a site-specific, performative installation responding to the labels imposed on refugees and asylum seekers. Three transparent PVA worker shirts, embroidered with the words alien, boat people, and illegal, were suspended by red yarn in the front courtyard of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), evoking a makeshift clothesline on a boat. Participants were invited to spray the shirts with water, causing the fabric to dissolve and the words to unravel into loose yarn on the floor. This poetic gesture transforms negative labels into nothingness, challenging the power of language to define human worth.

An iteration of adrift was presented in Campbell Arcade, Melbourne, reaching commuters in a public space over four weeks. The work unfolded as a phased, durational performance, with the shirts gradually dissolving.