Photography

Ian Terry, Uninnocent landscapes (#BookReview)

/ whisperinggums / 17 Comments

This is my third post on my brother’s beautiful book, Uninnocent landscapes: Following George Augustus Robinson’s Big River Mission. My first post announced its publication, and my second was on the book’s launch and the opening of the accompanying exhibition. Finally, I come to my review post. Yes, you could call me biased, but this project has had so many accolades that I don’t feel my bias contradicts the general run of opinion. However, you must decide for yourselves.

Uninnocent landscapes, as I wrote in those previous posts, is the culmination of an idea Ian started thinking about around a decade ago, but that he actively worked on over the last two to three years. It involved his following the journey taken by George Augustus Robinson on his 1831/32 Big River Mission (brief description), which was a poorly conceived attempt to conciliate between settler and Aboriginal Tasmanians. As those versed in Tasmanian history know, it was a disaster, and effectively ended First People’s resistance in lutruwita/Tasmania (back then, anyhow!) For Ian, who has come to call lutruwita home, there is discomfort in reconciling his privileged life as a middle-class white man with the devastating impact of colonialism on Tasmania’s First Peoples. This is his truth-telling project – his questioning, as he describes it, of how non-Indigenous Tasmanians (and, by extension, all non-indigenous Australians) “come to terms with our privilege and its Janus face, the violent and continuing dispossession of palawa” (and, by extension, all First Nations people). And he found a unique way to do it, by combining the three big passions of his life (besides family) – history, photography and the bush – to produce this book. 

Uninnocent landscapes, then, contains a selection of Ian’s photographs accompanied by excerpts from Robinson’s text. It also contains an introduction by Tasmanian art historian, curator, essayist and commentator on identity and place, Greg Lehman (a descendant of the Trawulwuy people of north-east Tasmania), and five essays, the first and last by Ian, and three he commissioned from:

  • Rebecca Digney (manager, Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania and proud pakana woman)
  • Nunami Sculthorpe-Green (activist/artist and proud palawa and Warlpiri woman)  
  • Roderic O’Connor (sixth-generation woolgrower and Connorville custodian)

These essays provide different perspectives on country and on colonialism’s impact on it. Together they work as a dialogue which encourages us to test our own thinking about what has happened in the past and how we might progress into the future.

“battered but still recognisable” (Nunami Sculthorpe-Green)

Ian explains in his first essay that the photographs were taken in a sprit of enquiry:

What memories do the landscapes of lutruwita/Tasmania hold? What stories are embedded in the rocks, the trees and grasses, the waters of rivers and lagoons? What could the landscape tell us about invasion, colonisation and the destruction of First People’s life and culture? What could it tell me about my own life here on this island?

The juxtaposition of Robinson’s text to Ian’s images offers literal, historical, symbolic and/or emotional readings of the photographs. They confront us with a colonial way of thinking about country that we haven’t fully shaken. Robinson’s reflection that “the whole of this country is peculiarly adapted for natives” is jolting, when you think about what this is really saying. Some excerpts reveal a man tired of his mission, while others show a sincere wish to be humane, but most of course are also overlaid with the arrogant confidence of the colonist. There is, though, also some humour, such as this:

I cautioned my natives and said if the whites saw them they would shoot them. They replied that they could see the whites first, and that they could not always shoot straight.

The image accompanying this text depicts a road passing through a fence on which is appended a security notice advising the area is under surveillance. It returns us to the reality that despite their knowledge, skills and confidence, the “natives” lost.

I’d love to share other examples of text and image, not to mention the thoughts of all the essayists, but instead, I’ll just say that this book provides a reading experience that is enlightening, provoking, and sobering.

When Ian first told me the title of the book, I thought it was inspired. He explains its origins in his opening essay. It comes from a conversation between two nature/landscape writers, the British Robert Macfarlane and the American Barry Lopez. Referencing the impact on the Slovenian landscape of war and atrocity, Macfarlane spoke of “a sense of the uninnocence of landscapes”. Nunami Sculthorpe-Green, however, expresses a different idea in her essay. She writes that “it is not the landscape that is uninnocent. It was not a party to the atrocities committed here, but a witness to them, and truly a victim itself”. Just reading these two opposing but sincerely felt ideas shows how important open and honest dialogue is if we are to understand each other. In some ways, the actual words are less important than the conversations they generate and what we learn through them.

It’s a big call, perhaps, to say Ian found a unique way to truth-tell, but I’m not the only one to see this project as original. One of those is Sculthorpe-Green who writes in her essay:

I do see this project as something different from the norm, in that it finally takes this story off the paper and re-centres our land as the storyteller and story keeper.

So yes, I’m hugely proud of what Ian has done. It’s a beautiful book that works aesthetically, intellectually and emotionally – and, more importantly, that moves the conversation forward. It’s a book that explores the depredations of the past, but that also contains hope. As Digney says at the end of her essay, “History resonates. We continue.”

Ian Terry
Uninnocent landscapes
Mt Nelson: OUTSIDE THE BOX / Earth Arts Rights, 2023
136pp.
ISBN: 9780646881058
Price $65, with all proceeds going to the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania’s Giving Land Back fund. You can order here (but supplies are dwindling).

 

Monday musings on Australian literature: Uninnocent Landscapes opened and launched

/ whisperinggums / 53 Comments

Those of you who know me on other social media will already have seen some of this, but I am keen to spread the message wherever I can about my brother’s wonderful, and significant, project. I introduced it back in September – and later in Nonfiction November I will review the book. That, however, will be after the exhibition has closed, and I want to encourage anyone who is in Tasmania to see it.

Uninnocent Landscapes – the exhibition and book – is the culmination of an idea Ian started thinking about a decade ago, but that he actively worked on over the last two to three years. It involved his following the journey taken by George Augustus Robinson on his 1831/32 Big River Mission, which was a poorly conceived attempt to conciliate between settler and Aboriginal Tasmanians. Needless to say it was a disaster, that effectively ended First People’s resistance in lutruwita/Tasmania (at the time anyhow!) For Ian, who has come to call lutruwita home, there is discomfort in reconciling his privileged life as a middle-class white man with the devastating impact of colonialism on Tasmania’s First Peoples. This is his truthtelling project, and he found a unique way to do it by combining the three big passions of his life (besides family) – history, photography and the bush.

I will write more about this when I review the book because what Ian has done feels original and exciting. Essentially, though, the book and the exhibition comprise photographs accompanied by excerpts from Robinson’s journal, resulting in an experience that is enlightening, engrossing, and sobering. The exhibition contains a selection of 11 from the book’s over 50 photographs.

The venue, Sidespace Gallery, is in a heritage building that dates back to the mid-1800s. This means two things – there are some restrictions on how items can be affixed, and the walls and floors are not what you would call square. However, Ian and his “crack instal team” did the research and, by the time I got there, were ready to go. The photographs – large-scale archival prints – were “hung” through a clever system of special Japanese tape (that doesn’t mark walls), double-sided tape, and magnets. I enjoyed being a little part of it all on the first day of installation, and loved meeting Ian’s delightful, hardworking team, Erica and Nikki, who made me feel so very welcome.

The opening (and book launch) went very well, with 50 or 60 in attendance. The MC was writer and researcher Steph Cahalan, and the exhibition was formally opened by Tony Brown, a First Nations man and museum colleague of my now-retired brother. Ian of course then spoke to his project, explaining, among other things, that he had discussed his project with many in the local Aboriginal community, and had made clear that he was not trying to tell their story, but his own. His good relationships with the community suggest that they accept this.

It was a warm-hearted event attended by historians, artists, museum professionals, bushies, activists, not to mention family and friends. I met and talked with so many interesting, thoughtful people who support Ian’s project and believe in what he is doing. I can’t name them all, but before it all started I had a great chat with the two women who designed and published the book. Our conversation ranged from technical issues like fonts to more personal ones like downsizing and philanthropy. It was truly a privilege to be there.

Ian calls Uninnocent Landscapes a photographic conversation. By this he means, I think – though I didn’t ask him while we were together – that he is using photography to reflect on (to interrogate, in fact) his relationship with the Tasmanian landscape he loves so much but which has been indelibly affected by over two centuries of colonialism. The idea of conversation, however, also encompasses something ongoing and inclusive, something inviting us all to join in as we engage with his photos and, for those of us living in colonised places, as we engage with “our” places. I will discuss this more, and talk about the title, in my review!

Uninnocent landscapes, the book, is published and distributed by OUTSIDE THE BOX / Earth Arts Rights under their imprint An Artist’s Own Book. It costs $65, and all proceeds are going to the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania’s Giving Land Back fund. You can order it here.

Ian Terry
Uninnocent Landscapes
Sidespace Galley, Salamanca Arts Centre
3 – 13 November, 2023
Admission is free

 

Paul Hetherington and Jen Webb, Watching the world (Review)

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Hetherington and Webb, Watching the worldI hope it’s not condescending to suggest, at this time of year, that a book would make a good Christmas present? I know some publishers, and fair enough too, choose around now to release certain types of books deemed to be good gift material. That, however, is not the case with this book, Watching the world, as it was in fact published back in July. It’s just that I’m reviewing it now and, quite coincidentally, I think it would make a good Christmas book. This is not because it’s a light, easy summer read, as it’s not your typical beach book, but because it’s a very attractive book that is priced reasonably and that can be enjoyed in multiple ways. You can meander through it sequentially, stopping to ponder, or dip in and out, exploring what catches your fancy.

Subtitled Impressions of Canberra, Watching the world comprises poems by Paul Hetherington paired with photographs by Jen Webb. It has a rather interesting genesis, as the Introduction explains, in that it’s the “result of an extended collaboration” between the poet and the artist. Their aim was to explore Canberra as a place in which people live and work, rather than, as is usually the case, as a planned city that is also the national capital. I like that idea. Too often Canberra is used as shorthand for the federal government – as in “Canberra said today ….”. But, as we who live here know, there is far more to Canberra than that.

Hetherington and Webb’s method of working was interesting too. They worked, they say, semi-independently:

Jen took photographs, which Paul then used as springboards into poems. Paul’s poems led, in turn, to Jen taking new photographs, or editing existing ones.

They continued this “iterative process” until they found “enough poem-photo pairs” that would satisfy their intention. They suggest that in this method of working a new “reality” appeared, one that was somehow separate both from themselves as individuals and from their partnership, a reality which confronted them with ideas about “the incommensurability of world, image and word”. That makes sense to me – I think! At least, it makes sense to me that we never can completely or exactly capture in one form – say poetry – that which is in another form – in this case life in Canberra. It seems both obvious and sophisticated at the same time to make this point! And so, when you have a poem and a photograph both “commenting” on each other and on life in Canberra, then the meaning (or the “reality”) surely becomes multi-layered? Hmmm … I think I’ll leave the philosophising here, but I hope that I’m making sense and that I’ve understood what Hetherington and Webb are saying.

Now, I’ll get to more concrete stuff (a very poetic word, that), starting with the wider project. In the Introduction, again, we are told that it was initially produced as an installation for the Imagine Canberra exhibition during Canberra’s 2013 centenary celebrations. It then had a couple of other iterations – at a conference, and as a set of scholarly essays – before finding its way into this book form this year. I love that they have managed to achieve such varied mileage out of their work.

And finally, the book itself. The poem-photo pairs are divided into three sections – Where we live, Memory places, and Paddocks and perambulations. They are, as you’d expect from the process described, idiosyncratic, although there is logic too to the groupings. The first poem-pair is titled “Waltz” and captures the physical sense of Canberra. I was amused by the poem’s opening:

Like algebra, these straight-drawn streets,
curves, crescents and rounding circles

Starting with the “straight-drawn streets” must surely be a little provocative gesture to the popular cry from tourists that they get lost in Canberra’s circles! We do, I’m sure, have far more traditionally designed streets than circular ones. It’s just that the circular pattern is a feature of the inner, early Canberra where tourists focus. The accompanying image is a low aerial shot of a warm, cosy looking Canberra suburb in autumn. The poem suggests that there is magic in Canberra, that for all the apparent “algebra” in its straight lines and curves, there is much here that cannot be easily defined or narrowed down to simple formulae.

The poems vary in tone. There is, for example, a subdued reference to indigenous inhabitants in “Ainslie”, whimsical self-deprecation in the simply titled “Canberra”, and wry or defiant humour in “Letter”. At least, it made me laugh: a woman hands her letter to someone, perhaps a husband she is leaving:

‘I know it’s not done
to be so formal
but just this once
I’d like the last word’

The accompanying image shows the back of a blue car driving away in light rain.

Sometimes the meanings of the poems and the connections with the photography are clear and unambiguous, more literal perhaps. Other times they are more tenuous, or abstract, as in “Handkerchief” with its accompanying leaf-litter image, encouraging the reader-viewer to delve further. I enjoy these challenges. It would be interesting to see whether different combinations challenge different readers.

The images are, of course, important, though being primarily a verbal/textual person, my focus tends to be the words. However, there are some gorgeous images here. I’ve mentioned a couple already. I also like the mystical tone of the poem-photo pair titled “Boundaries”, the sense of coming into and out of our different spiritual and physical selves, our individual and our social selves, and so on. A simple image and a two-line poem. Perfect.

Some of the pieces are universal, that is, they could apply to a lot of places in which people live, but many draw on signs and symbols familiar to Canberrans – the circles, the balloons, and Black Mountain Tower, for a start. We are a bush capital, and along with our trees come the birds. I enjoyed the cheekiness of the poem titled “Birds” (and the accompanying image setting movement against stillness) which suggests that for all the planning, life in the city might have other ideas. If you are now intrigued, have a look at the sample provided online by Blemish Books. That will probably speak louder than my 1000 words!

Watching the world is a quietly subversive work that looks at Canberra from an insider’s point of view – with a lot of affection but a willingness to cast an acerbic or questioning eye at times too. And remember, it’s Christmas soon!

Paul Hetherington and Jen Webb
Watching the world: Impressions of Canberra
Canberra: Blemish Books, 2015
79pp.
ISBN: 9780994250827

(Review copy courtesy Blemish Books)

Villainesses thriving in Canberra

/ whisperinggums / 16 Comments

Now I know many Australians see Canberra, their national capital, as a soulless, boring, sliced-white-bread sort of place but not so. There is life here. Art is happening – and it’s fresh, vibrant and young. Not all our young people have left (yet!).

Last night Mr Gums and I went to the opening of a collaborative exhibition organised by a group of twenty-somethings. The theme was Villainess. It was chosen, as one of the collaborators Georgia Kartas wrote in the foreword of the accompanying booklet,

for its surface-level but nonetheless undeniable badassery. Heroes have quests, villains have motives.

This is not a politically-focussed feminist exhibition as its name could suggest – though by its very existence it makes a statement about young women and their sense of self, their confidence, their willingness to get out there and do something for themselves. No, in fact it’s a fashion photo shoot exhibition. It is fun, clever, wicked – and it is stylish, as you’d expect from a fashion shoot. You can read something about its origin and the creation process at hercanberra and at Georgia Kartas’ redmagpie blog.

The collaborators were Elly Freer (photographer), Laura McCleane (make-up artist), and Georgia Kartas (fashion editor). The clothing, the hairpieces, the props were all sourced locally.

The photographic subjects are – of course – villainesses and they were chosen by the models – Elly, Laura, Georgia and their friends. There are ten villainesses, and they come from literature, popular culture and mythology, ranging from the very modern, such as Elle Driver from Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, to the very classic, like Medusa.

We loved the exhibition. The photographs are beautiful, and exude a delightful, but intelligent, irreverence which characterises the ethos of the exhibition. A lot of thought has clearly gone into the event, including the production of an accompanying booklet which contains written responses to the villainesses by local writers. These responses give the exhibition an extra dimension – reflective, and often satirical, or tongue-in-cheek. I particularly enjoyed Eleanor Malbon’s response to Elle Driver who was modelled by Elly Freer (what a coincidence in names here!) in which she manages to spoof both Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron (Avatar):

… All together, the problems of the world make a charge at Driver.

Flesh meets steel as she wields her swords. Elle Driver dunks soil erosion in a bucket full of gypsum. She rips the mask off charity programs to reveal their reinforcement of material inequality. Her bullets fly through the heart of the underlying causes of biodiversity loss.

You get the picture I’m sure. The booklet itself, designed by Sheila Papp, is a lovely piece of art and a fabulous memento of the exhibition.

Yep, a good night in which we saw the next generation of artists-creators strutting their stuff. What fun!

Villainess
Kaori Gallery, Cnr London Circuit and Hobart Place, Civic
7-9 November, 2013

Disclosure: I have known the photographer since she was a baby. Go Elly!

William Gilpin and travel photography

/ whisperinggums / 8 Comments

Yes, I know that William Gilpin, about whom I wrote in my last post, died before photography, though only just. He died in 1804 and, according to Wikipedia, the first permanent photograph produced by a camera was made in 1826. However, the notion of cameras – through the camera obscura – was already well known. This, however, is not really the subject of today’s post. The subject is the third essay in his Three essays, which is titled “On the art of sketching landscape”.

The thing is that this essay reminded me of travel photography because his main focus is “taking views from nature” the intention of which, he says

may either be to fix them in your own memory – or to convey, in some degree, your ideas to others.

Aren’t these our two main aims in taking travel photographs? That is, to help us remember our travel and/or to share out experiences with others?

He then goes on to give advice about how to sketch, some of which is specifically about the tools and implements of sketching, but some of which relates more broadly to composing pictures. For example, he writes of getting “the best point of view” for the scene you wish to sketch (or, for us, to photograph), stating that “a few paces to the right, or left, make a great difference”. He’s right there. There are times when I’ve been too lazy, or felt I didn’t have enough time, to walk about looking for the best aspect, only to be sorry later when I’ve seen someone’s better photograph of the same scene.

And he talks about “scale”, that is,

how to reduce it [the scene] properly withing the compass of your paper: for the scale of nature being so very different from your scale … If the landscape before you is extensive, take care you do not include too much: it may perhaps be divided more commodiously into two sketches …

Today of course we can take panoramic photos, and we can enlarge (or crop) to our heart’s content when we download our images onto our computers. Still, the better the original photo, the easier later editing is, eh?

His advice then starts to get more interesting, because he goes on to differentiate between making a sketch that “is intended merely to assist our own memory” and one “intended to convey, in some degree, our ideas to others“. These latter sketches, he says, “should be somewhat more adorned”. Now, part of this adornment is simply about the detail. A sketch to remind us of what we have seen may only require “a few rough strokes”, while one that is to convey something to others who have no idea of the place, needs “some composition … a degree of correctness and expression in the out-line – and some effect of light”.

But, he then goes further to suggest that “nature is most defective in composition; and must be a little assisted”. In other words, it is alright “to dispose the foreground as I please”. Yes, fair enough. We do this often, don’t we, in composing or enlarging/cropping photos? But, it is also alright, he says, to take further liberties:

I take up a tree, and plant it there. I pare a knoll, or make an addition to it. I move a piece of paling – a cottage – a wall – or any removable object, which I dislike.

He qualifies this, though, by saying that “liberties … with the truth must be taken with caution”. We should not, he says, introduce “what does not exist” but can make “those simple variations … which time itself is continually making”.

All this made me think of photography, digital in particular, and how easy it is to remove or modify or manipulate an image to make it look better … and made me realise that no matter what tools we have to hand, this is something we have always liked to do. And this is the point that Gilpin is making with his theory of “the picturesque” because, if you remember the definition I gave in my previous post, it is about “that peculiar kind of beauty, which is agreeable in a picture”.

What I take away from all this – ignoring Gilpin’s tendency to pomposity and prescription, for which he was, fairly I think, satirised – is that he is talking about the difference between “reality”, or what is actually there, and an aesthetic “truth” relating to the ideas (and even feelings*) conveyed by the scene. And that makes sense to me.

Fedra Olive Grove

Gilpin would not like the rows of olive trees here, but would probably like the irregular somewhat rough tree.

* There is, I believe, much academic debate about whether Romanticism rejected or extended the ideas of the Picturesque. I’m inclined to think it’s not a case of either/or but a more complex development.