Here are some snaps of the fabulous artists I'll be exhibiting with in a group show in May as part of the Head On photography festival.
The theme of the show will be the life of the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy which for 15 months fought for low cost housing for Aboriginal people. These images show the artists sorting through the many thousands of images taken in this time.
The other exhibiting artists are Glenn Lockitch, Barbara McGrady, Peter Crowfoot and Jarek Gasiorek. The show is being curated by Sandy Edwards and will be held at 107 Projects in Redfern. Stay tuned for more details.
Last night over 300 people gathered at Merrylands RSL for a fundraiser to support those who were devastated by Cyclone Winston in Fiji. The north of the country and the outlying islands were particularly hard hit.
70% of the sugar cane crop - which brings much income to poorer villages - was lost in the cyclone. It is estimated that it will take at least another year for some sense of normalcy to return to the affected parts of this beautiful country. And now that the news cycle has moved on and with the presence of aid agencies winding down, the next few months will be telling.
Calls are being made for financial support and particularly for Australians to chose Fiji as a choice of holiday destination. Tourism, despite all its pitfalls, is an important source of income for Fiji.
Cyclone Winston was the second strongest cyclone ever to be recorded and there are fears that with the global climate becoming more volatile, storms of similar and greater intensity will become more common. Fiji is particularly vulnerable to climate change and this recent disaster is a reminder of how the Pacific Islands - Australia's direct neighbors - will be some of the first and worst affected.
Here, two members of the fabulous group 'Rako Pasefika' perform at last night's fundraiser.
Looking through some old archives and found these, taken at East Swanson Dock, Melbourne, 1998.
I thought I would post these today, on the day that the NSW government passes new anti-protest laws, which have earned the ire of civil libertarians, environmentalists, Aboriginal rights activists and those concerned about the extension of police, government and corporate powers. These laws are ostensibly aimed at preventing protests against CSG and other mining but also target much broader civil, community and industrial activity. Aboriginal communities have stated that the laws will specifically prevent them from accessing their ancestral lands. The laws also coincide with controversial 457 visas recently being granted to foreign labour crewing coastal shipping routes, displacing local workers.
1998 represents the year of one of the most significant industrial disputes in Australia - perhaps the last major workforce dispute in this country - when during the Howard years, waterside workers went on strike around the country, the largest and most prolonged being the picket at the Patrick operated East Swanson Dock in Melbourne. Patrick stevedores had secretly trained then current and ex-military personnel in Dubai to break the strike. In April 1998, large contingents of police were sent to the dock. In response, thousands of unionists descended on the waterfront. The dispute and picket lasted months, eventually resulting in the maintenance of union presence on the docks, but also signaling a major decline of union power in Australia.
Here, some light-hearted moments in between the high tension as workers - young and old, men and women - practice their picketing technique in expectation of a police crackdown.
Scratchy black and white 35mm negs, shot on an Olympus OM-2n.
Digging through some old files and found this - taken at the last AFL game at Collingwood's traditional home ground, Victoria Park, Saturday the 28th of August, 1999.
It signified the end of an era, when Australian Rules Football moved from a tribalized, suburban and working class setting to becoming a multi-million dollar, national and corporatized phenomenon.
Pictured here, two local supporters give a couple of variations of the 'Collingwood salute' to the visiting team.
Shot on black and white 35mm Tri-X neg.
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The annual LGBQTI Sydney Mardi Gras kicked off in 2016 with a smoking ceremony in Hyde Park. These photos follow the event from there to the First Nations float which travelled down Oxford Street to Taylor Square in front of around 300,000 spectators. There was a record 178 floats this year.
The First Nations float then proceeded to Klub Koori for the after party, which was MC'd by Nana Miss Koori and featuring the amazing Destiny Haz Arrived, as well as a host of other performers, including Black Pearl, Lasey Duncan and Nova Gina.
There are approximately 150 photos documenting the night.
A big special thanks to the legendary Barbara McGrady who opened doors and chaperoned me around during the event.
*For full frame slide show view, click on the thumbnails below.
Some memories of the First Nations Float at the 2016 Sydney Mardis Gras.
The original '78ers - a group of activists who, with up to 1000 others marched down Oxford Street to Taylor Square in 1978, when 'acts of homosexuality' were still illegal in Australia. There they were met by baton-wielding police who proceed to beat and arrest many of the marchers. Some almost lost their lives. The Sydney Morning Herald printed the names of those arrested in their paper the next day as an act of public shaming. In the proceeding years, the march was repeated along the same route, in what has now become known as the Mardi Gras.
In 2016, 38 years after the first march, the New South Wales parliament, police and the Sydney Morning Herald apologized for the violence and mistreatment against these pioneers of human rights for LGBTI communities in Australia.
Happy Mardi Gras folks!
The first image was taken in 2012 on the Uzbek side of the Aral Sea, where once a shipping port stood. Since intensive cotton farming began in the 1960s, the Aral Sea has been dramatically shrinking. Once the fourth largest lake in the world, in 2014, it almost completely disappeared. The tragedy of the Aral Sea is considered one of the world's worst environmental disasters.
More info: http://www.ciesin.org/docs/006-238/006-238.html
The second image was taken in 2011 from the shores of a plentiful Menindee Lakes in far western New South Wales, Australia. But today in 2016, the Menindee Lakes is now under threat. Some also point to intensive cotton farming as well as mining further up the Darling River, which flows into the lakes. So dire is the situation that the entire water supply of Broken Hill, one of Australia's largest outback towns, is now threatened, along with the habitat of thousands of birds and wildlife. Menindee Lakes is a sacred site for the Barkindji people.
More info: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/broken-hill--why-is-australias-heritage-city-running-out-of-water-20151119-gl37m9.html
Native Fig - Randwick. One of the many 100+ year old trees earmarked for destruction to make way for light rail in Sydney's east. These historic trees had the opportunity of being saved had the light rail route been slightly altered. With the loss of these trees, wild life including possums, flying foxes and countless birds will also lose their habitat.
On the 8th anniversary of Kevin Rudd's apology for Australia's 'Stolen Generation' - the historical and systematic forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families - a group of Aboriginal grandmothers from all corners of Australia gathered at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra to protest against the continued removal of children from their families. Since Rudd's apology, forced removals of Aboriginal children have increased by 400% - what the grandmothers say is a new and devastating stolen generation, an ongoing tactic of genocide since 1788.
*Click through images for full screen view
Here's an attempt at some black & white sky-scapes.
January 26th 2016 - 228 years since the arrival of the first fleet in Sydney Harbour and the beginning of generations of dispossession, colonization, genocide and survival. To commemorate the occasion, this year's annual march began at the Block in Redfern and wound its way through the city streets of Sydney to Town Hall for speeches and then to 'Australia Hall' on Elizabeth Street, following in the footsteps of the first Day of Mourning held by Aboriginal activists and supporters in 1938.
FLASHBACK: Shots from 20 years ago - Yuendumu and Nyirripi, 300 and 500 kms north west of Alice Springs respectively, in the Central Australian Tanamai desert region, where I lived for 2 years with the Warlpiri mob, and where I worked on community film projects, including 'Marluku Wirlinyi - The Kangaroo Hunters' (SBS) and 'Night Patrol' (ABC); as well as a host of other local television, radio and video projects. These photos, some of which were used as production stills, were shot with an Olympus OM 2n on 35mm colour reversal film and scanned (poorly). Time to get them re-scanned! Add that task to the list... Photos taken at Yuendumu, Nyirripi, Pmara Junta, Papunya and surrounding homelands.
WARNING to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: Some of the images here portray people who have passed away.
UK spoken word and hip hop artist, Akala, performed as a part of Critical Conversations, a forum about the power of spoken word performance as an agent for change. Also performing were local artists, Kaveh Arya, Lorna Munro, Fuck Rappers, Chris Sulfa, Ana Claudia Paz, DA Carter and Zushan Ahmad Hashmi.
