The name "Homeward Bound" is taken from the title of a 1946 newspaper clipping, one of the few existing media coverage of the mass repatriation of Chinese seamen at the time, the short article presents a narrative entirely contradictory to the truth of the event to be revealed half a century later.

 

The series of black and white photographs depict sites that hold significant links to the deportation. Old gambling places in Nelson street, boarding houses and multi-occupancy buildings where the seamen used to reside, the old Blue Funnel office in Chinatown and Bailey street, a back alley where men were rumoured to be rounded up in the night.

 

The prints were submerged in the seawater collected near Gladstone Dock, where one of the main ships used for the repatriation was anchored. After 4-5 days, the images start to disintegrate and fade around the edges. These images visually reference the fading of memories as well as the different layers of erasure central to the experience of the deportations.