I purchased Teju Cole’s new photo­book, Fernweh, in March 2020—it arrived as an antidote of sorts to my endlessly-at-home condition.¹⁸ I spent time with the photographs of idyllic open spaces and Swiss views; sheaths of fabric and coverings that curtain views and windows. I was transported, and I considered the potential for travel via photographs that depict other worlds. In a blog post on his publisher’s website, Cole reflects on the importance of the photobook as an artform, in that it facilitates art viewing in the private spaces of one’s house, to be returned to many times, and that time spent with a photobook works as a ‘relatively brief immersion provisionally repairs the world’.¹⁹ I have an affinity for art forms best enjoyed in solitude, over extended periods or through repeated viewings: essays, photobooks, music albums, novels, poems and long-form artwork made for web-based engagement. Not only have these easily dispersed forms of art been a way to reorient a studio practice in a period of physical isolation, they have been a brief immersion from the world. I can turn to the photographic image or written word as an escape, of sorts, from a localised containment that the pandemic presents.

Not all those contained are contained in the same conditions. In Australia, containment cannot be thought of without recognition of the many people incarcerated in prisons and youth justice centres, and a consideration that the relative freedom brought about through a photograph could remain a trite reminder of the walls around them. Containment cannot be thought of without an acknowledgement of Australia’s on- and off-shore detention of refugees and asylum seekers. If I am to think of my own experience of containment, or how a body might be contained in small spaces, and the potential for photography and poetry to offer an escape, I must acknowledge that this is perhaps