'Escape Hatch' by David Pope is a digital illustration originally published in the Canberra Times.
The background is the flat black of outer space. In the top left corner of the illustration, orange writing reads, 'Escape Hatch…' In the bottom left quarter, in the side of a red-brick surface, a silver circular escape hatch hangs open. On the door to the hatch are silver handles at the top and bottom, and a small circular window in the centre surrounded by silver bolts. Across the width of the door are strips of yellow and black emergency tape, and red text which reads, 'Leaving violence – emergency payment.'
From the hatch, a long thin yellow cord curls outwards and is attached to two astronauts in the centre of the illustration. One adult-sized female-astronaut, in a full white spacesuit with a black visor, has a suitcase on her back and a plaid plastic bag on her front. Cradled under her arm is a small child in a space suit, with a tiny brown backpack on. The child clings to the adult, and the adult reaches her hand out to the righthand side of the illustration, where a tiny brown house labelled 'housing' drifts off into the distance.
In the bottom right corner is the signature of the artist, David Pope, and the date, 2/5/24.
'Why doesn’t she leave?' people ask. As if it were that easy. Dave adapts a brilliant metaphor for just how hard it usually is to do this. Wrestling open the escape hatch is just the beginning. Facing the woman and her child is often a pitiless void with the goal — a new home — so far away it seems unreachable.
