Artistic vision takes us to The Kimberley.

Hunter G's exhibition ‘The Kimberley’

St Helier’s St Gallery at the Abbotsford Convent.

We often tell our stories about land and our place in it with words. In his fight to raise awareness of the threats to The Kimberley region of Western Australia, Hunter G has told a story through photographs. It is an invitation to us all.

In testament to the power of the visual, and the potency of art as protest, Hunter G's exhibition has made us aware of a far away beauty that words cannot describe. This year saw Hunter G pack his things into a two wheel drive Toyota Town Ace van, and trek diagonally across Australia in a campaign to raise awareness about what is under threat on the far west coast of our land.

Along the way he blogged, wept, and wrote, whilst taking photographs of the land he passed through. He faced 50 degree heat, mozzies, road trains and road kill. Oh, and he got bogged.

It was a long journey to get there, but Hunter G, photographer, has now brought some images of the Kimberley back to his home town. His photographs are of a place which is far away but he feels is closely connected to all humans on this planet. His artistic vision asks us to think abut the choices we make in how we care for our environment.  It also speaks to people as custodians of something very precious, this pristine land which is under threat from major development.

As he writes on his Blog, in Some Things I Saw pt 2:

"I certainly have had other-worldly experiences in wild places, particularly in The Kimberley and Tasmania’s highlands where I have FELT a profound sense of calm, peace, wonder and belonging. It’s my hope that current and future generations will also be able to experience this and help us change our attitudes to the environment, to ourselves and to how we want our society to operate."

The Kimberley Connection

At 16, Hunter visited the Kimberley region of Western Australia. What it stirred in him was a response close to the spiritual. The untouched beauty of the environment, and his sense of an Aboriginal history beyond his own experience,  has since propelled him on a personal, an artistic and a political journey.

In the Kimberley, Woodside proposed a massive gas plant at James Price Point, known to indigenous people as Walmadan. Now that Woodside has announced that they will not proceed with this $43 billion development, there is still the threat of other mining operations. 

What was at stake?

The scale of the development was enormous.

Mining claims over Kimberley region of Western Australia

The mine site and its infrastructure would have carved through rainforest and across traditional songlines.  Animal species including whales and bilbies would have had their environments destroyed. The Wilderness Society stated: "The Kimberley’s clean seas, innumerable islands, coral reefs, mangroves, bays and estuaries are home to an astonishing variety of wildlife including Humpback whales and Dugong, five species of turtles, crocodiles, rare Snubfin dolphins and a coral reef network of global significance. The Kimberley coast also has outstanding cultural values for the region’s many Indigenous peoples."

The environmental impacts were huge, from the damage to sea beds, to the threat to habitat, to the destruction of dinosaur footprints and the desecration of Aboriginal burial grounds. Environs Kimberley provide a comprehensive assessment of what was at stake here. 

What was also at stake, is the connection to country and culture that sings to the Aboriginal people of the area. Songlines that speak of the history of country were to be severed, trampling across Aboriginal history in a way mostly inconceivable to us urban city dwellers. As Hunter G wrote, how would most Australians react if someone declared they wanted to dig up Don Bradman's grave?

Mining absurdity

This was not a journey about himself, Hunter G was adamant. It had to be about something much bigger. He had to be able to make people care enough about a distant place that they would fight to save it. And he was not afraid to use humour and mine absurdity for his cause.

Bright Ideas Man

Colin Promoting his Personal Philosophy 
 ’1 + 1 = Whatever The Hell I Want’
 Numpan Hills, near Halls Creek

Hunter G's blog is titled 'Collected Things from Forgotten Worlds.' In it, he has recorded a series of extraordinarily beautiful blog posts, Some Things I Saw, Parts 1-3. The images themselves are awe inspiring, but the prose too has that 'can't look away' quality which has readers following his progress as he crosses the desert and snakes his way to the West Australian coast. Reflective, honest and emotional, Hunter G has managed to connect with an audience to shout his message to 'Keep the Kimberley always in Your hearts.'

Bob Brown brings down the show

In his speech at the closing event, Hunter G explained ‘The Kimberley, and parts of Tasmania: it’s beyond anything I’ve ever experienced before. So wild and free; they have given me the greatest sense of calm in my life. It’s beyond words, it's a completely emotional place.'

Bob Brown gives an expansive closing address at Hunter G's exhibition, The Kimberley.
Photo by Anna Sublet 

Hunter G and Bob Brown.
Photo by Anna Sublet

As Bob Brown noted in his closing speech last Friday, “This is about the spirit of this nation, and this planet. and that’s what’s encapsulated here...the beauty and profound spiritual link, we have, even though we have not been there, with the Kimberley.” Hunter G’s work, said Brown,  “is human genius, recreating what it is that makes us relate to the wild planet.”

“Because you went, because you were inspired by it...we get to see a glimpse of the beauty and the possible devastation of a national and international heirloom. You went there, you helped save it."

“Make no mistake: we can be far way from it, but we still remain responsible for it.”

The Franklin River would never have been saved except for the outrage of the people of Melbourne, Brown said. Likewise, "The Kimberley needs us." 

"This artistic genius helped save the Franklin. It has now helped save stage 1 of the onslaught on the Kimberley."

In speaking of the power of art in activism, Brown urged people to purchase these artworks. "If a piece of the Kimberley goes on your wall, you are then reminded as to why it is why we all need to work for it, to support organisations who are defending it, to write to our politicians about it, to vote for it and to go there, because to go there is to want to save it.

"We can’t do this without creativity."

As an artist, the recognition of the impact of one's work beyond the studio and beyond one's own mind must be a beautiful tune to hear. You are not alone-others walk and feel with you.

“Thankyou Charlie for a fantastic exhibition which lifts my spirits," said Brown. "We all know what is going on on the planet but you have to have your spirits lifted. Keep going!”

As Brown said to the artist activist: Keep Going! Hunter G's journey has come home for now, but he is only checking in before continuing to document things from Lost and Forgotten Worlds. The eye and heart of the artist is like the canary in the coal mine (or gas plant), singing stories in a language of images and words that take us beyond our known environs, and deeper towards a shared humanity.

© Anna Sublet 2014

All images taken from Hunter G's blog copyright Charlie Sublet





More information, check out Kimberley Campaigners Fact Sheet 

Kimberley environmental campaigners describe the background to the gas plant proposal here. 

The Wilderness Society’s campaign page clearly shows what is at stake.

Also see renowned Australian musician John Butler’s wonderful opinion piece in the SMH.