Oscar Murillo Destroyed his British Passport on a London – Sidney flight

News have emerged with more details on when Oscar Murillo destroyed his British passport on a flight from London to Sidney where he was invited to attend the Sydney Biennale.

Once the artists landed in Sidney, he was detained for two days and then deported to Singapore; from there he was taken to Barcelona, Madrid and then his home country Colombia from where he was allowed a safe passage back to the UK. The news started spreading during Art Basel Hong Kong when Murillo was in town as a guest of a panel of the fair’s Salon sector and it has been confirmed today by a representative of David Zwirner‘s gallery.

“I recently attended a panel in Hong Kong where Oscar spoke, and what I understood from that talk was that he destroyed his British passport en route to Sydney as an act and response to the notion of ‘privilege’ that is associated with certain citizenships in the Western world,” Julia Joern, a partner at the gallery, said in a statement. “He still retains his Colombian passport.”