It's Like That

In February 2002, Australian radio reporter Jacqueline Arias did telephone interviews with very young asylum seekers, who had been detained for at least twelve months on the Australian coast. The children talked about their situation with some resignation: ‘Because life in this land out here is good, but not in this camp. It’s as if we’ve been sent to prison. Do you know prison? That’s what it’s like here!’ The independent collective Southern Ladies Animation Group S.L.A.G. made an animated film, featuring three coloured birds, to go along with the children’s voices. At the time of the completion of the film, in the autumn of 2003, the children’s situation had still not changed.