Rethinking Plato’s Theory of Art: Aesthetics and the Timaeus

The Timaeus presents a fascinating account of the cosmos. It includes a creation myth that introduces the figure known as the Demiurge who, despite the fact that he is the cause of the sensible world, is reverently attributed with reason, and whose creation – the cosmos – is actually beautiful and good. In this dialogue Plato offers his readers a panorama of the universe. But just what are his intentions for this? Is his approach a precursor to the methods of natural science,1 or does the Timaeus fall under the category of theology? This thesis will discuss the outcome Plato wished to achieve by finally writing on cosmology and how the methods used to accomplish these ends reveal a more existential attitude towards aesthetics

Displacement, exile and incarceration commuted into cinematic vision

Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time (Behrouz Boochani and Arash Kamali Sarvestani, 2017) is a documentary that exposes the systematic torture of refugees banished by the Australian Government to Manus Prison (in Papua New Guinea and officially called the Manus Regional Processing Centre). Shot clandestinely from a mobile phone camera by Boochani and smuggled out for codirection with Kamali Sarvestani, the film documents an important phase in the history of migration to Australia. This article analyses the film by foregrounding the experience of displacement, exile and incarceration as a unique cinematic standpoint. Boochani’s cinematic vision and socio-political critique will be interpreted in terms of embodied knowing and his existential predicament. The symbiotic relationship between the experience of seeking asylum, exile, imprisonment and the filmmaking process raises critical questions regarding the film as anti-genre, common tropes used to define refugeehood, and the criteria necessary to interpret and evaluate cultural production created from this unique position. The article draws on theories pertaining to accented cinema and incorporates ideas from social epistemology. Furthermore, it considers the author’s dialogue and collaboration with Boochani and Kamali Sarvestani and examines the significance of various contributors to the filmmaking process and cinematic vision

Carceral-border cinema: The film from Manus prison. Introduction

The articles in this dossier critically discuss the film Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time (Behrouz Boochani and Arash Kamali Sarvestani, 2017) and reflect on its creation and response. The film is unique in many ways. It was shot clandestinely on a smartphone; shots were smuggled out of the Manus Island immigration detention centre (which has now been dismantled, but was located on the Lombrum Naval Base and officially called Manus Regional Processing Centre) to Lorengau, the main town on the island, then to Australia, and then sent to the codirector in the Netherlands. One of the filmmakers, Behrouz Boochani, was imprisoned at the time of filming and production, an imprisonment which continues at the time of writing; and the two codirectors have never met—the whole film project was conducted over WhatsApp voice messaging and never with conversations in real time due to poor reception in the prison

Translation in Digital Times: Omid Tofighian on Translating the Manus Prison Narratives

On 12 February 2020, while on an international tour promoting Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison, the translator of the book, Omid Tofighian, participated in a seminar at Utrecht University, organised by Australian academic, Anna Poletti (associate professor of English language and culture, Utrecht University). Poletti is also co-editor of the journal Biography: an interdisciplinary quarterly, which published a special issue on No Friend but the Mountains in 2020 (Vol. 43, No. 4). The seminar involved Poletti, Tofighian and translation scholar, Onno Kosters (assistant professor of English literature and translation studies, Utrecht University) in conversation. Iranian–Dutch filmmaker, Arash Kamali Sarvestani, co-director with Boochani of the film Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time (2017), was in attendance, as well as the Dutch publisher, Jurgen Maas (Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas, Dutch translation based on the English translation). The event was titled ‘No Friend but the Mountains: Translation in Digital Times’. The following dialogue, ‘Translation in Digital Times: Omid Tofighian on Translating the Manus Prison Narratives’, is derived from this seminar and focuses on Tofighian’s translation of the book from Persian/Farsi into English. The topics covered also include the Dutch translation from Tofighian’s English translation, genre and anti-genre, horrific surrealism, Kurdish elements and influences, the Kurdish translation (from Tofighian’s English translation), publication of the Persian/Farsi original, translation as activism, process and technology

Performance as Intersectional Resistance: Power, Polyphony and Processes of Abolition

Australia’s brutal carceral-border regime is a colonial system of intertwining systems of oppression that combine the prison-industrial complex and the border-industrial complex. It is a violent and multidimensional regime that includes an expanding prison industry and onshore and offshore immigration detention centres; locations of cruelty, and violent sites for staging contemporary politics and coloniality. This article shares insights into the making of a radical intersectional dance theatre work titled Jurrungu Ngan-ga by Marrugeku, Australia’s leading Indigenous and intercultural dance theatre company. The production, created between 2019–2021, brings together collaborations through and across Indigenous Australian, Kurdish, Iranian, Palestinian, Filipino, Filipinx, and Anglo settler performance, activism and knowledge production. The artistic, political and intellectual dimensions of the show reinforce each other to interrogate Australia’s brutal carceral regime and the concept of the border itself. The article is presented in a polyphonic structure of expanded interviews with the cast and descriptions of the resulting live performance. It identifies radical ways that intersectional and trans-disciplinary performances can, as an ‘act of liberation’, be applied to make visible, embody, address, and help dismantle systems of oppression, control and subjugation

On Representing Extreme Experiences in Writing and Translation: Omid Tofighian on Translating the Manus Prison Narratives

On 10 June 2021, the Norwegian translator Signe Prøis (for publisher Camino Forlag) organised an event with both Behrouz Boochani and Omid Tofighian (both by video link from New Zealand and Australia) in conversation with translation studies scholar Erlend Wichne (University of Agder, Norway; Agder forum for translation studies). The event was titled: ‘Can I translate it? On representing extreme experiences in writing and translation’. The dialogue in this article features excerpts from the seminar with a focus on Tofighian’s translation of Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (2018) into English. The topics covered include responsibility, translation as activism, some aspects of the broader context to translating No Friend but the Mountains, the role of place, and a shared philosophical activity