Beyond the refugee camps: life in Nauru – in pictures

Despite attracting intense international media scrutiny in recent years, little is known about Nauru beyond its old phosphate mines and Australia’s detention centres. Sally McInerney, daughter of pioneering Australian modernist female photographer Olive Cotton, decided to capture a different view of this tiny Pacific island nation. Taken from two trips in 2014 and 2015, this collection of starkly honest images – of local restaurants, swimming pools and brightly painted streets – help demystify life on Nauru.

  • The Nauru airport features an illustrated map of the country. With a population of about 12,000 people (including 2,000 refugees), it is home to approximately the same number of people as those living in the regional town of Cowra, New South Wales, where photographer Sally McInerney grew up. All photographs: Sally McInerney
    The Nauru airport features an illustrated map of the country

  • A jeep parked just off the main road of Nauru. In an exhibition essay, McInerney said though she saw dozens of rusted vehicles, she never saw ‘the infamous yellow Lamborghini which crops up repeatedly in patronising palangi [white European] internet stories about Nauru’. In 2008, British newspapers reported a police chief imported the sportscar only to find he was too fat too fit behind the wheel
    A jeep parked just off the main road of Nauru

  • The harbour pool at Anibare is near the main camp for refugee families. In 2014, a refugee who had resettled in Nauru after being sent to an Australian immigration centre drowned off Anibare Bay along with a Nauruan citizen who tried to rescue him
    The harbour pool at Anibare is near the refugee camp

  • This Pakistani restaurant was the first restaurant to be opened by former asylum seekers Riaz Hussain and Nisar Ali in early November 2014. It closed down a few months later, after a number of asylum seekers protested against living conditions on the island. During the protests asylum seekers refused to attend classes or speak with case managers. In a police crackdown almost 200 people were arrested
    This Pakistani restaurant was opened by two refugee friends Riaz Hussain and Nisar Ali in early November 2014

  • Political protest banners spotted on the main road of Nauru. In 2015, the Nauruan government introduced a new criminal offence that could see political opponents and asylum seekers who protest against their conditions jailed for up to seven years
    Political protest banners spotted on the main road of Nauru

  • Signs on the main road of Nauru read ‘drink, drive, go to jail’. Nauru’s main thoroughfare is a 24km ring road. At 40km per hour, the ring can be driven in about half an hour
    Signs on the main road of Nauru read ‘drink, drive, go to jail’

  • Fly-in-fly-out worker accommodation at the Menen hotel. The colours pink, blue and green prevail in the Nauran setting and are typical of Pacific Island culture
    Fly-in-fly-out worker accommodation at the Menen hotel

  • A barista at the Capital restaurant. Most restaurants in Nauru resemble sheds with double doors and are run by Chinese families who have quite likely lived on Nauru for several generations
    A barista at the Capital restaurant

  • A political protest sign on a house on the main road in the Meneng district in late June 2015.
    The Menen hotel, bearing a protest sign propped up against the window

  • Nauruan children Breson Fritz, Nikman Garoa, Jessina Fritz, Nikalus Garoa and Zuki Bingham at Buada Lagoon with a fighting rooster. The children told McInerney they were taking their rooster to Location. The unusual name is a shortened version of Chinese Location, which once described where Chinese phosphate workers lived
    Nauruan children Breson Fritz, Nikman Garoa, Jessina Fritz, Nikalus Garoa and Zuki Bingham at Buada Lagoon with a fighting rooster
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