Description
This Should Not Happen Here was sparked by the death of Omid Masoumali, a 23-year-old Iranian refugee who set himself on fire on Nauru on 26 April 2016, in an act of desperation and protest against the conditions of offshore detention. He died in Brisbane three days later, following severe burns and delays in receiving specialist medical treatment.
Omid had fled Iran seeking safety. Despite being recognised as a refugee, he remained trapped in an uncertain future, unable to move forward with his life. His death exposed the devastating human consequences of a system in which people seeking protection were left in prolonged uncertainty, with serious questions raised about the medical care and emergency response he received.
The artwork does not attempt to reconstruct the event or depict Omid literally. Instead, a solitary figure, engulfed in intense colour and fragmented light, becomes a symbol of human suffering pushed beyond the limits of endurance. The figure is deliberately ambiguous, allowing the image to speak beyond one individual tragedy.
The title is both a statement and an accusation. It challenges the assumption that such suffering is inevitable, or that it can be accepted as an unfortunate consequence of policy. It asks what happens when systems designed to manage human lives lose sight of the people within them.
Through this work, Rose Marinelli reflects on the intersection of institutional power, human vulnerability and public responsibility. This Should Not Happen Here is a meditation on dignity, accountability and the consequences of looking away — a reminder that behind every policy are human lives, and that preventable suffering should never become normalised.
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