Happy Death-Birthday Dear REDACTED

Mohsen Meysami is a multidisciplinary artist based in Melbourne Australia. Meysami is interested in utilising a variety of mediums and techniques to communicate complex political ideas. His works have been selected as a finalist in a number of awards including the Arte Laguna Venice 2018, Fisher’s Ghost Art Award 2018, Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award, and Incinerator Art Award. In 2017, he won the Footscray Art Prize 2017 Tertiary Award.

Happy Death-Birthday Dear REDACTED illustrates one of the incidents published in August 2016 by The Guardian as part of The Nauru Files, leaked incident reports written by staff in Australia’s detention centre on Nauru between 2013 and 2015. Save the Children Australia caseworker [REDACTED] was walking through the volleyball area when he was stopped by [REDACTED]. [REDACTED] stated to caseworker that it is her birthday on Friday. She then stated, “I want to die on my birthday”. Caseworker asked why and she replied, “it is not worth living here anymore”.