The Wire

This year’s Sydney Writers Festival was not just a celebration of authors and their literature. Writers persecuted for practicing their craft were represented as well. The Sydney PEN Centre usually place empty chairs at events like the Writer’s Festival to act as a physical reminder of the plight of imprisoned writers. This year they took the idea further with The Painted Chairs exhibition, currently on display at the Ken Done gallery in Sydney. Fifteen Australian artists contributed to the interactive installation, painting chairs to represent writers who are absent due to imprisonment, detention, and even death.