| Brian Cassey Photographer Cairns Australia

Inside Manus at the Clarions …

August 1, 2023September 15, 2018

Made a bit of a detour on the way home from Mumbai … via Brisbane … to attend the annual Queensland media awards … “The Clarion Awards” at the Exhibition and Convention Centre.

It’s always a great night … hosted by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) … that acknowledges the achievements of the Sunshine States (now somewhat shrinking) media. This year the evening was made a little ‘greater’ for me when awarded a ‘win’ in the “Best Photographic Essay’ category for my work “Inside Manus Detention Centre”.

Although the work has previously been shown as an exhibition (here & here)… it is the first time it has been recognised with an award by, essentially, my peers. Pretty excited and gratified about that.

The work documents the visit of myself and journalist Rory Callinan to the Lombrum Manus Island Detention Centre in Papua New Guinea just two days after it was abandoned by the Australian Government leaving over 600 asylum seekers to fend for themselves with no water, no food, no power … and no services whatsoever. We were the first print media to gain access inside the centre. The work was syndicated around News Ltd publications by News 360.

Below are just a small selection of images from the Winning essay. © Brian Cassey

Thanks MEAA !

Clarion Queensland Media Awards 2018 - "Best Photographic EssaY" - "Inside Manus Detention Centre" - by Brian Cassey

TIFA Winners Announced …

April 12, 2018April 4, 2018

Seems only a hand full of Australian based photographers get a mention in the ‘Winners list’ of the ‘Tokyo International Foto Awards’ (TIFA) announced quietly today.

The good news is that colleagues and friends of mine … David Dare Parker and Adam Pretty are on that list … and that I also made it with two awards.

David Dare Parker’s great work on the Rohingya fleeing Myanmar into Bangladesh took out Second Prize (Silver) in Editorial General News … whilst Adam Pretty’s excellent and much lauded essay ‘Waterpolo Warriors’ won Gold in Editorial Sport.

My successes are … “The Skin I’m In – II” … Second Prize (Silver) in the Portrait category … and “Beaten Asylum Seeker” … Third Prize (Bronze) in the Editorial Political category. Both images have been in the spot light previously and just some of the earlier relevant links may be found at … https://www.briancasseyphotographer.com/blog/awardsblog/2018/03/carol-does-it-again/, https://www.briancasseyphotographer.com/blog/2016/10/october-great-month/, https://www.briancasseyphotographer.com/blog/2017/04/4782/… and https://www.briancasseyphotographer.com/blog/2016/12/sensational-walkleys/ .

The remainder of the TIFA Winners were spread right around the planet … with some interesting names popping up.

The Winners works will be hung or projected at the ICA Gallery, ICA3 Bldg E 2F, 3 Chome-4-6 Higashinihonbashi, Chūō, Tokyo from May 12th to 16th … with the opening event on May 13th from 3 to 7pm.

Below … my winning images from the TIFA web site … pics © Brian Cassey

Tokyo International Foto Awards (TIFA) - Bronze Prize (Third) - Editorial Political - "Beaten Asylum Seeker" by Brian Cassey

Tokyo International Foto Awards (TIFA) - Silver Prize (Second) - Portrait - "The Skin I'm In - II" by Brian Cassey

Inside Manus … at the ‘Fox Gallery’, Melbourne …

August 1, 2023February 26, 2018

Great weekend ‘down south’ in Melbourne … and pretty intense too. Arrived at Tom Goldner’s ‘The Fox Darkroom & Gallery’ from Cairns with less than an hour to spare before the scheduled opening of my “Inside Manus Detention Centre” collection. Tom, his meticulous assistant Leni Fohringer and ‘The Fox’ crew had performed a wonderful job hanging the work and readying the gallery and the (essential) refreshment for the exhibition launch eve.

Tom had been relentless in his desire to show my work from inside the Lombrum asylum seeker detention centre, made just two days after the Australian government closed it down early last November with over six hundred men still inside. Journalist Rory Callinan and myself were extremely fortunate to gain access inside the abandoned camp … built by the Australian government at astronomic cost just a few years back … to document the plight of the hundreds left in the tropical heat with no power, no food, no water, no medicines … and no services.

The evening was excellent and the crowd large, engaged and enthusiastic. Great to have good photographer friends and colleagues Tracey Nearmy and John Donegan in attendance … and also Nikon’s tireless Professional Markets Manager Julie Kimpton. Oh yeah … we even managed to collect a tidy amount of cash from donations during the evening which will be passed on to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

On Saturday it was back to ‘The Fox’ for a presentation of an expanded ‘projection and chat’ version of my “A Photographer’s Life – Part One” collection … previously hung in Sydney and Cairns … in front of a twenty plus seated audience. Managed to natter about the show accompanied by the projection of over a hundred images for over the two hours of the event … hopefully without boring the pants off the paying patrons too much.

I really do need to sincerely thank a host of people for their support in getting “Inside Manus Detention Centre” on the wall and a success … Tom Goldner for his enthusiasm, determination and great gallery space, Leni for her boundless energy and organisational skills, Prism Imaging for their fantastic printing of the work, Julie Kimpton and Nikon Australia for their invaluable assistance, Alison Stieven-Taylor from ‘Photojournalism Now’ for her wonderful promotional help, the entire ‘Fox’ team of volunteers and associates … and all those that made it to ‘The Fox Darkroom & Gallery’ on the weekend for the two shows. Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

Also thanks to the ‘Milk Bar Mag’ and ‘Broadsheet’ publications in Melbourne for their coverage and promotion of the show.

“Inside Manus Detention Centre” is open at ‘The Fox Gallery’, Kensington, Melbourne till March 4th.

Images All © Brian Cassey

… the quiet before the opening …

… but it soon got a little busy …

… unmistakably Nikon’s Julie Kimpton on the right …

… Pakistani refugee Ezatullah Kakar on the boat to the Lombrum detention centre with food and medicines …

ABC Media Watch … Manus Island Detention Centre … We Were There …

April 5, 2018November 13, 2017

ABC Media Watch aired a segment on the lack of media coverage when the Australian Government closed the Manus Island PNG Lombrum asylum seeker detention centre leaving over six hundred refugees without water, food, power, medicines or any other essential services. Myself and journalist Rory Callinan were there … and managed to work inside the abandoned camp. Not sure if the Media Watch coverage was a good or a bad thing!

Inside Manus … Abandoned Asylum Seekers …

November 12, 2017November 10, 2017

Last week News Ltd journalist Rory Callinan and myself managed to get inside the now ‘closed’ Australian asylum seeker detention centre at Lombrum, Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

We were invited to join a small band of refugees who were running urgently needed foods and medicines back to the detention centre where near 600 asylum seekers had been abandoned and left with no food, water, electricity, health or any other services by Australia’s ‘closure’ of the centre. The food run was to be one of the last … police next day stopped the boat trips and arrested local boatmen.

Our visit was short and chaotic … we were mobbed by men desperate for help and desperate to tell their harrowing stories of four years detention or to beg for medicines. Conditions were obviously deteriorating fast … despite their attempts to keep basic order and collect water from a makeshift well dug in the camp. Some were visibly ill and others showed signs of mental torment.

I’m not sure how long we spent in the camp but we were soon ushered back to the boat as we were warned the police were coming. But we were there … unlike the overwhelming majority of Australia’s media.

The images were used in News Corp publications including three on the front of The Australian.

A sobering experience … although in depth comment at the moment eludes me …

Have now compiled a photo essay of the images made. Below are just a few from the full essay which is now published on my web site at … https://www.briancasseyphotographer.com/photographs/inside-abandoned-manus/

Images © Brian Cassey and News Corp.

‘Armani Refugees’ … Not … !

July 10, 2023October 1, 2017

It’s not too often that your work prompts days worth of National news coverage … but that has been the case since last weeks job for the Daily Telegraph and News Ltd in Papua New Guinea.

The job description from the DT pic desk was succinct … get to Port Moresby and find the first group of refugees that were flying out of Manus Island en route to the United States. In short … I did find them, spoke to them, shared drinks and (almost) a shisha pipe with them … and photographed them at Port Moresby airport as they departed for resettlement in the US.

The images were published page one and page six of the Daily Telegraph (below) … and almost instantly Australia’s Immigration Minister Peter Dutton denounced the asylum seekers in my photographs (variously from Myanmar, Sudan, Bangladesh, Somalia, etc) for their dress and refugee status, during a radio interview with Sydney’s Roy Hadley. The term “Armani Refugees” was bantered about.

This par is from The Guardian … “Mr Dutton, asked about an image of those preparing to depart Port Moresby, said a lot of people who ended up in the island camps had not come from war-ravaged areas but were instead economic refugees. They’d received “an enormous amount of support” from Australian taxpayers for a long time. “We have been taken for a ride, I believe, by a lot of the advocates and people within Labor and the Greens who want you to believe this is a terrible existence,” Mr Dutton said.”

So … there you have it … being incarcerated behind numerous massive razor wire topped fences for a period of around four years, being subjected to physical and mental torment despite being classified as ‘genuine refugees’ by government agencies whist also NOT being a criminal … is astonishingly described by Dutton as “receiving an enormous amount of support”!

Let’s get this straight … the clothing of those asylum seekers who I saw depart PNG was either … donated by charities or government … or purchased on the very cheap from Manus Island road side stalls or shops. Armani or Gucci didn’t come into it.

Labor’s Chris Bowen fired back at Dutton … “They are refugees, they’ve been found by him (Immigration Minister Peter Dutton) and his government to be genuine refugees under the (UN 1951 Refugee) Convention – and he might choose to point that out rather than being the commentator on the efficacy or otherwise of their clothing.”

I spent several hours with the group of refugees in their well hidden Port Moresby hotel … and can confirm that their over riding concern wasn’t for fashion or clothing … but for the fate of the hundreds of their asylum seeker friends still facing an uncertain future at the hands of the Australian Government on Manus Island.

It did take several days … but on Sunday Foreign Minister Julie Bishop DID come out to contradict colleague Dutton and confirm that “people leaving Australia’s offshore detention centres for resettlement in the US were ‘genuine refugees’ (source – The Guardian). At least Bishop showed some integrity … too much to expect any of that from Dutton.

Images © Brian Cassey & The Daily Telegraph

Armani Refugees - Daily Telegraph - Manus Island refugees fly to the US - image by Brian Cassey

Bi ’16, Hi ’17 …

July 10, 2023January 10, 2017

Thanks to Murray Young for pointing this out (I was across the other side of the planet so initially missed it) … great showing in the first publication of 2017 in the Sunday Mail, January 1.

The S Mail used my image of beaten asylum seeker Abdullatif Almoftaji across the entire front page cover of their photographic retrospective special … ‘2016 Pictures of the Year’ … which also included some mind blowing and soon to be, if not already, ‘iconic’ (for want of a better term) images … including Cameron Spencer’s Getty image of Usain Bolt, Burhan Ozbilici’s startling AP image of Mevlut Mert Altintas after murdering Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov, Jonathan Bachman’s ‘Black Lives Matter’ Baton Rouge protest pic of leshia Evans … and Mahmoud Raslan’s haunting image of 5 year old Syrian child Omran Daqneesh in Aleppo. All images that will go down in history.

Real Chuffed to have my image part of such an amazing collection.

My pic of beaten 20 year old Iraqi asylum seeker Abdullatif was made at the Manus Island Papua New Guinea police watch house during a visit to document the island’s detainees. In December it was recognised as the winner of the Nikon Walkley Portrait Prize for 2016.

Below is a grab of the January 1st three page Sunday Mail special ‘In the Frame – Pictures of the Year’ (Abdullatif image © Brian Cassey)

Pictures of the Year 2016 - Abdulaftif Almoftaji - Manus Island by Brian Cassey

21st QMMA’s …

November 16, 2016

Enjoyed a great night last Saturday at the Cairns Reef Hotel Casino celebrating – with colleagues from the media and advertising industries – the twenty first Queensland Multi Media Awards.

At the end of a very entertaining evening and after enjoying some great company and many laughs, I left lugging awards for ‘Best Editorial Photograph’ (Ravenshoe Blast Survivor) and ‘Best Photographic Image’ (Manus – Beaten Asylum Seeker).

I’m very grateful to the subjects of my images … former Ravenshoe cafe chef Noeleen Avenell who suffered massive burns and months of painful recovery (which continue to this day) … and young Iraqi asylum seeker Abdullatif who suffered detention on Manus Island at the whims of the Australian government. (As a footnote – Abdullatif, now just twenty one, was recently deported back to Iraq … and in past weeks I have managed to track him down to Turkey where he fled after finding Iraq ‘too dangerous’.)

Thanks to the 2016 QMMA organising committee … and ‘bring on’ the 22nd QMMA’s in 2017 … !

Winning Images - Queensland Multi Media Awards 2016 - 'Best Editorial Image' - "Ravenshoe Blast Survivor" - 'Best Photographic Image' - "Beaten Asylum Seeker" by Brian Cassey

Delayed Gratification …

September 20, 2016September 20, 2016

Nice publication this week in a brilliant innovative UK print magazine … ten pages of my images and words in “Delayed Gratification – (the Slow Journalism Magazine)” – finely orchestrated by DG director Marcus Webb.

The mag takes a refreshing and unique look at the news. It’s stories re-analysis news events three months after, “picking out what really mattered and returning to events with the benefit of hindsight so we can give you the final analysis rather than the first, kneejerk reaction.”

The classy elegantly designed and printed publication takes the form of a quarterly historical document with “lots of beautiful infographics, which we use to draw out patterns from the quarter and give new angles on stories.”

They proudly boast … “We invest in the best long-form, in-depth journalism in the world, accompanied by stunning images and photo features.”

My work – “Between Heaven and Hell” – tells in images and words the story of Manus Island and the impact of Australia’s contentious two billion odd dollar Lombrum asylum seeker detention centre on the Papua New Guinea island and it’s indigenous population. It was the result of two visits (totalling three weeks in July 2013 & May 2016) to the island, working as a freelance for News Corp Australia (who kindly OK’d the use of my images in the mag).

Below you can see the ten magazine pages of the article … and if you’d like to read my words I strongly suggest you take out a subscription to what is a truly wonderful magazine! You won’t regret it …

As “Delayed Gratification” say on their web site … “It even smells good !”

Between Heaven & Hell - Asylum Seekers on Manus Island - by Brian Cassey in Delayed Gratification