Writing Through Fences is a group of people who create, writing or making art. Founded by Janet Galbraith, most of the members are or have been incarcerated within Australia’s immigration detention regime. The group is unfunded and run by volunteers.
Writing Through Fences grew from Janet’s experience of using writing and art making to deal with trauma. Through the art of words, Janet was able to create a sense of self and from here she began to spread her message. In the three years that the group has been running, she has helped countless people to breach the fences that attempt to control, define and silence them. Janet facilitates workshops in detention centres, providing writers and artists with materials and supporting writers to share their work at public events. Writing Through Fences aims to create a safe place in which writers and artists can explore their ideas, creativity, experiences and identities within, before and despite immigration detention.
Currently, the group is raising funds to publish an anthology of work by women, Women Speak: Writing Through Fences. Women Writing was a project from the initiative that began in 2013. This closed group is specifically for women who were writing from within detention. Many of those women have been released and gone on to do other things with their lives.
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