Poetry as Love and Resistance: A Presentation by Behrouz Boochani and Janet Galbraith

Behrouz Boochani and Janet Galbraith’s joint presentation recounts the work of a collaborative group based in Australia called Writing Through Fences. They describe the way the group emerged out of the carceral system of refugee detention in Australia, which involved exiling refugees to detention camps in islands throughout the Pacific, including Manus Island and the island nation of Nauru. The presentation addresses the way language has been used to claim colonized land, but also the way translation can facilitate artistic collaborations across great distances of both space and cultural difference. Galbraith and Boochani articulate the way poetry itself is a language with great potential for resistance.