Stories »

Until we are all free

Until We Are All Free is a comic produced from WhatsApp conversations between a Kurdish journalist, Behrouz Boochani who has been detained on Manus Island for the past 5 years, and a PositiveNegatives’ researcher.

Length: 26 pages

Credits: Alex Mankiewicz (Illustration), Behrouz Boochani & Poppy Ogier (Co-Producers), Dr Benjamin Worku-Dix (Director) 

Info: Highly Commended Australian/New Zealand Illustration Awards, 2018.  Short-listed for a The 2019 Ledger Awards

The initial direction of the project was to give a new perspective on Behrouz’s well-known story, but issues started presenting themselves on the island with guards no longer performing their duties, water and electricity being cut and Behrouz being arrested for a short period of time. From these issues, the idea came to represent his story within the context of ongoing events with the real-time elements of the WhatsApp conversation.

Here is a link to the animation referenced in the comic, Nowhere Line: Voices from Manus Island by Lukas Schrank.