The Australian Federal Government’s attempt to have 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian land stripped of its World Heritage status in June 2014 was one of many actions of this government that were deeply concerning to me at the time this work was made. When Prime Minister Tony Abbott chose to misrepresent the facts about the true status of this land in the pursuit of his agenda, a tactic his government was employing in regard to many issues, I felt compelled to make my first political statement piece. This work attempts to set the record straight using a simple visual key.
Artist Statement:
I fear a return to war. I don’t know for which side I should stand. My home state is under threat of a return to turmoil in our forests, destroying the hard-won peace of recent years. I search for full truths, but find only halves: opinions and data skewed to service agendas. I add my own subjectivity, presenting an edited version of the rhetoric of our new leader against data claimed by selected ‘experts’ to be fact. There are no full truths. I fear a return to war.
White=old growth, Grey=regenerated 50+years, Yellow= industrially logged, Black= degenerated, Red=plantation.
