Maurice Blackburn is Australia’s leading social justice law firm. Their brand values align to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 16, promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, providing access to justice for all. The firm has influenced some of Australia’s most important human rights legal decisions, including the 40-hour work week and equal pay for women and Indigenous workers.

Recently, they had taken action to address the plight of those seeking asylum in Australia’s offshore detention with a class action lawsuit on behalf of survivors against the government, arguing that indefinite offshore detention should be unlawful. Unfortunately, in 2021, due to a change in the law, the case was dismissed. However, Maurice Blackburn still believed survivors’ stories deserved to be heard. Their brief was to create widespread awareness of the atrocities survivors experienced to try to provoke policy change.

For over ten years, people seeking asylum in Australia by boat have been stopped by the Australian Navy & sent to offshore detention centres in Nauru, Manus Island & Papua New Guinea. They wait indefinitely to be processed, held in privately-owned prisons. There is no visual evidence. Cameras & journalists are banned. Neither the public nor politicians know what occurs inside, leading to atrocities that have been hidden from view, including sexual assault, physical violence, verbal abuse, racism, homophobia, paedophilia and more.

Only by making injustice visible, can we provoke change. That is the purpose of Exhibit A-i.

The most powerful evidence is visual. Yet for 10+ years, the Australian government has inhumanely detained refugees in offshore detention centres, banning cameras & journalists. There is no visual evidence. Only by making injustice visible, can we provoke change. Introducing Exhibit A-i.

Social justice law firm, Maurice Blackburn, conducted 300 hours of interviews with refugees, documenting the atrocities they faced in offshore detention. Together with AI technicians, survivors then generated the first visual evidence of their experiences. Details were made as accurate as possible, from the colour of the tents to subjects’ facial expressions. While photojournalists were consulted to guide composition & image quality.

The evidence was compiled into a book, submitted to members of Australian Parliament & used in 1:1 conversations with policy-makers. It was sent to journalists, garnering worldwide attention, before being shared with the public in OOH, exhibitions & online, as well as integrated into stock libraries.

Exhibit A-i is a permanent record of the horrors of offshore detention. At the heart of the campaign is a book of evidence submitted to members of the Australian Parliament and used in 1:1 meetings with key policy-makers. The book was also sent to leading journalists, garnering worldwide attention. To launch this campaign publicly, immersive exhibitions were held at Australia’s Parliament House and Immigration Museum - where the images and stories were printed and exhibited within barbed wire fencing. Additionally, we partnered with the editorial library, Shutterstock, to upload our visuals to their website so that they could sit alongside real photojournalism. The words and images were also displayed on a microsite, OOH and social.

The campaign softly launched on 26.03.23, with a hero launch on 04.04.23. There will be multiple bursts throughout the year to continue the conversation on ending offshore detention in Australia.

Our strategy was to ensure survivors’ stories were not just told but seen.

Our brains process images faster than words, encoding them into memories and creating lasting imprints. To create change, we needed to give people reasons to care and understand. The strongest way to do that, was to imprint a visual story in their memory.

We researched historical photojournalism that exposed injustice - like ‘Napalm Girl’ shifting attitudes about the Vietnam War or Tiananmen Square’s ‘Tank Man’ sparking conversation around censorship.

We needed imagery of this power to accompany survivors’ stories. Unfortunately, cameras and journalists are banned in Australian offshore detention, meaning there was no visual evidence. That’s where AI came in.

Our target audience: 1. Members of government with the power to change policy 2. Members of the media, who could share images globally. 3. The public, who could honour the refugees’ desire for their stories.

Exhibit A-i restored humanity to the thousands whose trauma had been hidden from view, and did justice to these individuals’ requests for their stories to be shared and understood. It also exposed the hidden horrors of Australia’s offshore detention to the public, politicians and press — receiving $2.5M+ in earned media in one week and reaching over 340 million people with over 300 pieces of coverage.

Our collated images and statements have become a body of evidence that’s used as a tool in policy-change conversations with members of Australian Parliament and in 1:1 meetings with key decision-makers within the coalition government.

Exhibit A-i was presented to Australia’s Minister for Immigration, who is now evaluating the evidence.

In 10+ years, over 4,183 people seeking asylum have been processed through Australian offshore detention. Many are not granted permanent visas afterwards, meaning they live in fear of deportation.

Nauru remains Australia’s sole offshore processing centre, after the detention centre on Manus Island was ruled unlawful and ordered to be shut down by that country’s supreme court.

As of 28 February 2023, there were 1,099 people in detention facilities. This included 1,050 men and approximately 47 women.

They live in fear of violence.

Those who were released are afraid they’ll face retribution for speaking out.

So we helped these survivors tell their stories anonymously for the first time, to show the world what happens in offshore detention in excruciating and confronting detail.