Another Day in Paradise

English Student Responses

Another Day in Paradise is a major touring exhibition by artist Myuran Sukumaran and contemporary

Australian artists Megan Cope, Matthew Sleeth, Khaled Sabsabi, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah and Jagath

Dheerasekara. The exhibition was co-curated by Ben Quilty and Michael Dagostino.

The following student responses were created by Year 9 English students at Radford College

Canberra.

Task Another Day in Paradise explores and challenges concepts of justice, punishment, humanity and

forgiveness.

Choose at least one artwork from the collection and devise a piece of writing inspired by the work.

Your writing may take the form of a narrative or something more didactic. Either way, it must

persuade the reader to think and to consider possibilities for change.

Artwork: Myuran Sukumaran, (detail) Self portrait, Time is Ticking, 25 April 2015. Oil on canvas, 100 x 80cm.

Mistakes

By Ananya Aggarwal

His eyes gleamed like a fish’s silver scales,

His fur as soft as a silk woven rug,

Heated by the tenderness of his owner’s love.

His joyousness was a sight to behold.

The puppy grew into an elegant beast.

Not only did his fragile body strengthen,

But his demons grew bold,

Until the time that they were too dark to suppress.

The now silver grey wolf faces the cold,

Overlooking the sights of the uncaring, savage world.

He gives no care to his owner’s plea,

As she desperately yearns for the harmless puppy…

Who had become something else.

His dark, wet nose twitches.

His soft ears rise to the blistering cold.

The power from his large pads throw back the snow;

His twitching muscles propelling him forward.

The girl runs after him frantically,

Desperate to prevent the carnage.

But the damage is done.

Like fine china irrevocably broken.

As she finally catches up, she can only stare.

Her legs are buried in the wet, ivory snow.

She looks across the field of white, at the blood trail which follows.

The beast’s teeth savagely strike into a soft, brown deer.

The poor creature lays helplessly;

The life in its eyes fading.

The kicking hooves subside into twitching,

Slowing- then ceasing all movement.

A sea of crimson surrounds the wolf and its freshly slaughtered prey.

The wolf rises from the wet, reddened flesh,

His vacant eyes stare at the girl.

They are foreign to her now.

The transition to beast is complete.

Now only an obscure shadow of his former purity remains.

Her panic races her away from the creature-

The beast who she now only fears.

She remembers his fur, his nose, his shining, mercury eyes.

This was all an illusion which with the deer, has been snatched away.

But still she loves the sweet puppy he used to be.

She will never completely let him go.

Wandering through the snow companionless,

She longs for his return, his embrace.

She would never abandon him, not for a mistake.

She drifts through the lonesome woods,

Desperately hoping to see that familiar furry shape, in spite of what he’s done.

She finally discovers him! The animal she treasured!

The same silver eyes gaze upon her.

Her heart, heavy with pain is suddenly light.

He leaps through the pillows of snow to her,

His mistakes, floating featherlike away.

For a moment they are both returned to their innocence,

The puppy and young girl.

Until the euphoria runs stray,

And the merciless world is exposed.

A man with a long barrelled gun

Emerges from behind a bare, branched bush.

The girl cries out ‘No!’ as the great dog runs to her.

The unaware animal continues his course.

The man’s frigid metal gun is aiming.

The girls’ tears fall like rain on a dusty surface.

She pleads for him to stop.

The man shouts obliviously, “I’ll save you!”

As the bullet races away from the gun,

Bang!

A mistake was made which could never be undone.

The beast and the puppy, both gone in a flash.

His fur stains with scarlet mess.

His cold body is left with an infinite black hole,

From which his life has been savagely taken.

His judgement and his release come,

The blood which held his mistakes has rained.

-------

Artwork: Myuran Sukumaran, Self portrait, Time is Ticking, 25 April 2015. Oil on canvas, 100 x 80cm.

The execution chair

by Emily Gilding

Tears,

Salty, pouring down cheeks and falling to the floor,

Tears of loss, of grief, of fear,

Drying after the breath has been forever stolen from starving lungs,

Mixing with red, stained forever,

In the execution chair.

Cries,

Echoing down the hallway,

Haunting those with hearts,

A warning of things to come,

The last expression of those,

In the execution chair.

Blood,

Spilled over and over,

Never making a point worth its price,

Staining hands and conscience,

Death trickling from hearts still beating,

In the execution chair.

Death,

Life taken without reason,

Pain, guilt and sorrow are gone,

A chance for love, happiness and forgiveness forever stolen,

So much is lost,

For all,

In the execution chair.

---

Artwork: Myuran Sukumaran, Untitled (Indonesian execution cross), 2015. Oil on canvas. 60 x 50cm.

36 Hours

by Oliver Johnstone

The sea salt in the air filled the man’s nostrils as he sat on the pure white sand and gazed out over the

impossibly large expanse of the Indian Ocean. In that instant, the man felt happy. This is what he

craved in life, this feeling of peace that could only stem from one thing. Freedom. Then the scents of

the ocean were replaced by the pungent smell of rusting metal and unwashed bodies, the sounds of

the waves gently crashing against the sand was substituted with the rattling of metal cups against

metal bars, and the vast ocean faded into the image of a blank grey wall a mere metre from the man.

More than anything, this man longed to escape these bars, these blanks walls, because the thing they

symbolised was the worst imaginable. They symbolised the man’s imminent death.

36 hours. That’s all he was given. 36 hours to live. 36 hours left on Earth, and all he would see was the

wall of his cell. 36 hours until he died. He couldn’t believe it, he refused to believe it. He didn’t want it

to end. Since he had been arrested, his life had been a bleak and repetitive existence, with nothing

out of the ordinary happening for weeks at a time. The man had no contact with the outside world,

and had no way of knowing whether his family was ok. He would never talk to them again. This

shattered the man’s heart into microscopic pieces. Despite the crimes he had carried out, despite the

things that he’d done, the man still loved his family, and he knew deep down that they still loved him

too. The man wasn’t ready to die.

In his last 36 hours, the man reflected on his life. His home town had been Sydney, Australia. How he’d

loved that city, and it saddened him even more to know that he would only ever see it in his dreams

now. There was no chance of the man being pardoned. It was too late for that now. The man wanted

to scream from the unfairness of it all. One bad thing. That’s all he’d done, and now he was going to

be killed for it. The anger boiled in the man’s bones. How did he deserve this?

The priest sat on a small fold out chair in a corner of the room and preached to the man about how

God would forgive him of his sins and how the man would transcend into the Heavenly Kingdom soon,

and how he would be accepted into the family of the Lord. It was supposed to help the man, but it

made him so angry. How could this man be telling him that everyone would be accepted and his sins

would be forgiven when he was about to be executed for something he foolishly did five years ago?

The priest left a copy of The Holy Bible with the man when he left, and the man caught a glimpse of

the holy man’s watch as he put the book down. 24 hours.

Dear Mother,

I love you. Please never forget that. I now only have 18 hours until I die, and during my last day on

Earth, the only thing I can think of is your face. I know I did a horrible thing, I know it was inexcusable.

However, I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me for what I’ve done. It’s frightening,

knowing you’re about to die. I wish I were able to see you again.

Remember, I love you.

Your son

As the man signed off the letter, a single tear fell onto the single sheet of paper he had been given.

With a start, he realised he was shaking uncontrollably. 18 hours. Half of his precious time was already

gone, slipping through his fingers like water. The man wished that there was some way of stopping it

from happening, prayed to God to help him, to save him. But nothing could save him now, no matter

how much he wanted it. A chill ran down the length of his spine. 18 hours. And the man was truly

afraid.

The guard brought the man his last meal with 6 hours to go. All the man had requested was a bowl of

sweet and sour fish curry. The warm stew reminded him so much of home, and of the mother he

would never see again. The fish curry was one of his mother’s favourite meals. He began to cry

uncontrollably, his tears garnishing the half-eaten curry that lay in his lap. The man was so scared, so

very scared, and so incredibly sad that his life was about to end. When the guard returned to collect

his bowl, the man asked how long he had left. The man felt his heart go cold in his chest at the reply.

3 hours.

It was time. His 36 hours were used up. The guard put him in handcuffs and leg shackles and frog

marched him through the halls of the prison that had been his home, his life for the past five years.

When the man reached the courtyard where he would meet his death, he realised that he wasn’t sad

or afraid. He had accepted what was about to happen, and that there was nothing that could be done,

nothing to be angry about. The man and two others stood facing guards with rifles. The man watched

calmly as they cocked their rifles and took aim. As the clock struck 7, the guards fired. The last thing

the man saw before he closed his eyes was the brief flash of fire at the barrels of the gun that meant

that bullets had started their deadly journeys. A sense of tranquillity came over the man, and suddenly

he was back on the pure white sand looking over the ocean. And in that instant, he felt happy.

---

Artwork: Myuran Sukumaran, Untitled (Self-Portrait with Island and Skull), Date unknown. Oil on

canvas. 100 x 100cm.

Erased by Lily Kelly-Ebbeck

I know it’s coming. I’ve accepted it now. Resigned to the fact that the whole world won’t be

satisfied, until I’m dead. It’s been seven years since I arrived on death row. I don’t really know

whether it feels like I’ve been here for longer than that or not. Time blends together here.

I remember watching a news segment a couple of years before I was arrested. A pretty blonde

reporter talked smoothly about how prisoners were kept in horrendous conditions before being

executed. Kept for lengthy periods of time in isolation, with quickly deteriorating mental health.

Simply waiting to die. I never gave it much thought. I changed the channel and watched football

instead. It never once crossed my mind that I could end up like one of those prisoners.

The day it happened, the day when I signed my own death sentence, I wish I could tell you that I had

paused, realised the consequence of what I was doing and decided against it, or at least worried

about the outcome of my actions. But to tell you that would be a lie. I knew exactly what I was

doing, I knew the illegality of the situation but I somehow justified my actions to myself.

The outcome seemed worth it at the time because the risk, the possibility of getting caught seemed

so far off the radar. But like I said, that was at the time. I had everything planned out, down to the

last second, so surely nothing could go wrong? How naïve I was. It wasn’t worth it. None of it. Not at

the cost of my life, although that took me by surprise as well- the harshness of my sentence.

Was my sentence fair? I guess it was.

I’ve been told countless times that this is what evil, disgraceful people like myself deserve. But that’s

the thing, I don’t feel evil. Maybe I was once, but not now. I can recognise now that what I did was

wrong. If I could go back and reverse everything, down to the last dark thought I would, but I can’t.

Life doesn’t work like that and no matter how much I have changed since my arrival here; my fate

remains the same.

I want to live. I don’t understand how my life could just be snuffed out, how I could be erased as

easily as a pencil mistake. How could that be fair? How could my life be treated as worthless? How

could my death achieve anything but more pain? Surely I’m more help to the world alive?

I guess I’ve already been erased.

It’s not like I do anything but sit in my cell all day, wasting away. It’s the mindset that becomes the

norm in here that erases people- the waiting to die, accepting that nothing will change your fate.

There isn’t any hope left and without hope… people change, people become shells of who they used

to be because the person who they used to be is dead. Erased. Gone way before they reach their

execution date.

I’ll pay for my crimes with my life. That is, if anyone ever gets around to carrying out my sentence. As

if capital punishment isn’t enough, I have to sit around every day in isolation, just waiting for the end

to come. This has been my life for seven years, and very possibly another seven more. No date has

been set, so instead I go mad wondering whether I have days or weeks left to live, or another decade

of this sorry existence. Through all of this I’ve been alone, except for the occasional visit from my

mother and sister. For them I keep my chin up, for if anyone has suffered through this situation, it is

them. Some days I think it would be easier on my family if I died sooner rather than later. Then they

could move on with their lives, not worry about me for any longer than they already have.

After all, this is my fate, there’s no escaping it. The judge brought down the gavel, declaring the

death penalty fit for my crimes. Declaring my legal murder, fair.

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Artwork: (detail) Myuran Sukumaran, Self, 2014. Oil on canvas. 60 x 50cm.

Mirror-Mirror

by Hannah Vardy

Mirror mirror on the wall

Who’s the fairest of them all-

The judges of a person’s fate

Or the man who set the execution date?

Mirror mirror on the wall

Who’s the fairest of them all-

The parents of a long-lost son

Or a man whose final days are done?

Mirror mirror on the wall

Who’s the fairest of them all-

The straw that’s drawn for the cruellest heart

Or a family torn apart?

Mirror mirror on the wall

Who’s the fairest of them all-

A person who cheated death

Or the man who’s only one breath left?

Mirror mirror on the wall

Who’s the fairest of them all-

The killers in the firing squad

Or the last prayers to an unknown god?

Mirror mirror on the wall

Who’s the fairest of them all-

A boy with impossible dreams

Or a man whose last word is a scream?

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Artwork: Myuran Sukumaran, Untitled (Double Self-Portrait Embracing), 2015. Oil on canvas. 100 x

90cm.