Project editor and lead producer Lauren Martin is an award-winning journalist now working at UNSW’s Kaldor Centre, where co-producer Frances Voon is the Executive Manager.
Project legal consultant Dr Sangeetha Pillai, the writer and editor of Temporary's resources, is a Senior Research Associate at the Kaldor Centre.
Digital designer Pat Armstrong is interaction design lead at Craig Walker and interested in exploring new ways of presenting long-form narrative work online.
The project was supported by Kaldor Centre Director Jane McAdam and Administrator Frances Nolan, as well as by RACS Centre Director and Principal Solicitor Sarah Dale, Senior Supervising Solicitor Alison Ryan, Senior Solicitor Isobel McGarity, Senior Marketing and Communications Officer Emma Davies and the RACS team.
Audio support for the Ten-Minute Law series was provided by editor Eleanor Buckley and Saira Arias.
Initial funding for the project was provided by the Collier Charitable Fund.
Lead producer Kara Jensen-Mackinnon is a producer and journalist who has created work for Guardian Australia, ABC, Sydney Opera House and more.
Co-producer Miles Herbert is a freelance audio producer and journalist.
Podcast host Sisonke Msimang is the author of Always Another Country: A memoir of exile and home (2017) and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela (2018). A Perth-based writer born in South Africa, she is Head of Storytelling at the Centre for Stories and the curator of Perth Festival's Literature & Ideas program.
Jordanian vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Lama Zakharia, who is currently Senior Podcast Producer at Nova and seeking asylum in Australia, created the original soundtrack for the podcast.
The series was supported by multiple award-winning journalists at Guardian Australia, including Head of Audio Miles Martignoni, journalist Ben Doherty and Editor Lenore Taylor.
Sydney-born, New York-based visual artist and storyteller Matt Huynh‘s award-winning work has been exhibited by MoMA, The Smithsonian, Sydney Opera House, Brooklyn Museum, and more. He created the brand identity for Temporary.
Original art for the online stories was commissioned through the Refugee Art Project, a non-profit community art organisation that facilitates art workshops for people of an asylum seeker or refugee background in Western Sydney. The organisation has held numerous public exhibitions across many genres, created self-published zines and contributed to online projects and forums. The aim is to collaboratively support and promote the agency of refugees in Australia, educate the broader Australian community and activate art in the struggle for refugee rights.
Safdar Ahmed, founder of the Refugee Art Project, is artistic liaison for the artists, who are themselves on various forms of temporary protection and who illustrated stories where the subjects cannot be identified. His graphic novel Still Alive will be published in 2021 by Twelve Panels Press.
Tabz A (Kumar’s story) came to Australia as a refugee with her family in 2012, residing for the most part in Sydney’s Villawood detention centre. She and her older sisters were some of the first students to graduate from high school while incarcerated, a remarkable achievement for young women who have spent their childhood in the shadowlands of societies all over the world or held in immigration detentions. She studied Graphic Design at Western Sydney University and hopes to develop her practice in design and visual arts. Instagram Profile.
M Jafari (Arman’s story) is a Hazara refugee from Afghanistan. He fled to Australia in 2010 and was subsequently incarcerated for two years in Australian immigration detention centres. He now lives in the community in Western Sydney. Jafari began to make art in the Villawood detention centre in 2011, focusing on drawing with pencil and pen. He has exhibited artwork for Undrawing the Line, for the exhibition Utopian Pulse, Flares in the Darkroom, The Secession, Vienna (2014) and with Refugee Art Project in Telling Tales: Excursions in narrative form, MCA, Sydney (2016).
Leila (Yehye’s story) came to Australia from Iran as a refugee seven years ago. She and other refugees have been left in a state of limbo on punitive visas by the Australian government. She is not allowed to study but has enjoyed developing her art practice over the past three years.
Abdul Karim Hekmat (Zaki’s story) is a freelance writer, journalist and photographer. He arrived as a refugee from Afghanistan in 2001 and spent five months in detention in Australia. Since graduating with honours from UTS under a temporary protection visa scheme, Abdul has written for The Saturday Paper, Fairfax Media and the Guardian on refugees and asylum seekers. In 2016, he was awarded the Humanitarian Award and was a finalist for the United Nations Media Peace Award and Amnesty International Media Award. He is a PhD candidate at UTS and a board member of the Refugee Council of Australia.
Amir Kamrani (Hani’s story) is an Afghan/Hazara refugee who came to Australia in 2012 and spent a year in detention. He now lives in suburban Sydney. After completing his HSC in 2015, Amir won a scholarship to the Academy of Film, Theatre and Television, earning his Bachelor of Screen and Media in Film Directing and Cinematography in 2018. He has worked on international feature and documentary films and for Australian television networks including the ABC, Seven Network, and SBS. Amir has made more than 10 short films, including Voice of Mother, which won the Best Narrative and Best Directing awards from IFEFA. Instagram Profile
Jamila Shah (Elaheh’s story) is a natural light photographer from Adelaide, South Australia. She first held an SLR camera in 2010, at her high school. ‘I started a journey there, learning with great enthusiasm and curiosity, this magnificent technique,’ she says. ‘One day my daughter arrived, and two years later my son, who gave me the inspiration I feel today photographing children, family and maternity sessions. Without a doubt, it was the right path. Today I go with my head full of images, I am happy to dedicate myself exclusively to family photography with a unique artistic style and a love for candids. I hope when you look at my work, you find your own individual meanings to each piece.’
