AI-mediated witnessing: refugee testimony and visibility in Australia's Exhibit A-I

This article examines Exhibit A-I: The Refugee Account as a case of AI-mediated witnessing, exploring how ethical storytelling practices can centre marginalised voices without exposing vulnerable communities to further harm. Situated within Australia's offshore detention regime, which is characterised by restricted access and limited visual documentation, Exhibit A-I uses AI-generated imagery and synthetic audio to translate refugee testimony into publicly circulating artefacts. Drawing on scholarship on mediated suffering and witnessing, the article argues that generative AI introduces a new mediating layer that transforms testimony from direct forms of recorded evidence into AI-mediated reconstruction. This enables forms of visibility that would otherwise remain inaccessible, while raising important questions about authenticity, authorship and the ethical shaping of representation. The concept of AI-mediated witnessing is proposed to capture these dynamics and to show how generative media, alongside more conventional forms of anonymised mediation, can support the communication of sensitive experiences while reconfiguring the conditions under which voice, visibility and public engagement are produced.