An exhibition and panel discussion by Kaya Barry, Matt Withers, Kirstie Petrou, Jeanette Tanghwa, Ema Moolchand. The exhibition brings together images and stories of temporary migration from the Pacific to Australia.

Hosted by ABC Radio National's Natasha Mitchell, this public panel discussion will be recorded for later broadcast on the program Big Ideas, and will feature:

• Nunes Da Costa Barreto, a horticultural worker and musician from Timor-Leste
• Ema Vueti, President of the Pacific Islands Council of Queensland
• Ken Dachi, Leeton Shire Council and Welcoming Australia
• Kaya Barry, Senior Research Fellow at Griffith University

With an introduction from Matt Withers, The Australian National University and Kirstie Petrou, UNSW Sydney.

About the exhibition:

The group exhibition Temporary presents photographs from three social research projects – Kaya Barry’s Seasonal focusses on migrant farm workers in Queensland; Together Apart by Matt Withers, Kirstie Petrou & Jeanette Tanghwa considers the social impacts on workers’ families back home; and Ema Moolchand’s Seeing The Whole Picture explores the pressures and challenges faced by workers in meat and cleaning jobs. The subtitle for this exhibition, We Wanted Workers But We Got People, is a famous quote from Swiss novelist Max Frisch criticising the overly economistic focus of Europe’s post-World War Two guestworker schemes. Like Frisch, the three projects exhibited here aim to highlight the human side of labour mobility schemes. The workers this exhibition focuses on – those on the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) visa – like other guest workers before them, are much more than just workers.

The photographs were captured by the workers themselves or by their family members, using cameras supplied by the researchers or their own phones and devices. Viewed together, these three distinct projects tell an over-arching story of the experience of coming to Australia as a temporary worker on the PALM scheme - through snapshots of their day-to-day lives, their workplaces, shared accommodations, and friendships – and of the impacts of these experiences on workers’ family members and communities back home.

Program

5.30-6.00pm - Guests arrive / Exhibition displayed in the foyer of the RSSS building.

6.00-7.30pm - In Conversation Panel

7.30-8.30pm - Following the panel event, light refreshments will be served in the foyer.

This event is co-presented by the Australian National University and Griffith University.