The boundaries of the state are elusive and arbitrary. Beyond and between them is a void.

The idea of ‘Australia’ ends just a few metres from where I’m writing, in an alley between this building and the next. From my workday window I gaze directly into several rooms opposite, the windows of a hotel now co-opted as a detention centre; a prison for men who fled one state under duress and are yet to find the comfort of belonging in another.