StarsStarsStarsStarsStars

Review: The Terania Creek Protest, Lismore Regional Gallery

In 1979 Terania Creek became the focus of a landmark environmental protest and one of Australia’s best-known actions against the destruction of wilderness.
[This is archived content and may not display in the originally intended format.]

The Terania Creek Protest 1979. Photo by David Kemp.

There was a palpable bohemian buzz in the Lismore Quadrangle (The Quad) as a community of disparate Northern Rivers’ folk gathered for the opening of Lismore Regional Gallery’s first exhibition for 2019: The Terania Creek Protest: David Kemp, Michael Murphy, Hugh Nicholson, Paul Tait and Jeni Kendall.  

In 1979 Terania Creek became the focus of a landmark environmental protest. Locals formed a human shield to protect rainforest against commercial forestry. It is one of Australia’s best-known actions against the destruction of wilderness, and the non-violent direct action technique developed by the protesters influenced environmental campaigns locally and internationally.

On a balmy late afternoon, forty years later, music still played a big part in the nostalgia of the event as local Nimbin musicians Neil Pike and Peter Pix (formerly the psychedelic folk-rock band Star Ring) provided a redolent underscoring. Memories of long flowing hair, wafting marijuana and the ‘counter-culture’ migration that brought many from the city in search of ‘a vision different to their parents’ lubricated regional pride. 

There was also much admiration in the recognition of Hugh Nicholson and his wife Nan who, pivotal to the protest, had just accepted the 2019 Australia Day Award for ‘Services in the Community (Group)’ – on behalf of the Terania Creek blockaders – for their pioneering efforts that secured the future of The Nightcap National Park, (now World Heritage-listed).

The exhibition was launched by the dynamic Rhoda Roberts, a Bungjalung woman (and Head of Indigenous Programming, Sydney Opera House). She delivered her remarks facing the recent installation of an impressive three-storey mural on the Lismore Library opposite.

Commissioned by the Quad as a key feature of the 2019 Quadrangle creative program, it is by renowned street artist Fintan Magee. The Quad partnered with Southern Cross University’s Indigenous School to develop the theme for the mural, that features an Elder and a young person from the Widjubul Wiyabul clan of the Bundjalung nation, to celebrate intergenerational exchange of Bundjalung knowledge and language.

To emphasise the cross-cultural confluence, Roberts, along with her gratitude to the protesters for protecting ‘country,’ shared a story from her childhood: when she arrived home from school disparaging ‘the hippies’ who were demonstrating, she was chastised by her father: ‘Leave the hippies alone,’ he scolded, ‘they’re the only ones having a conversation with us!’

The bulk of the Gallery 2 exhibition is taken up by photographs (inkjet prints from the few surviving negatives) taken by protesters, including amateur photographer, David Kemp, with other unknown chroniclers. While they are fundamentally journalistic in approach (documenting the daily life of the protest in the makeshift tent-town; the head-on confrontations in the landscape; the arrests – 44 during the month-long action – and the inevitable court attendance), the A3 size black and white images are genuine, provocative and inspiring images of ‘community’. 

The Terania Creek Protest 1979. Photo by David Kemp.

I was drawn to what is arguably the first iconic ‘lone-protester-versus-the-bulldozer’ images taken in Australia. It is a dramatic shot of demonstrators, dwarfed by the sky-scraper rainforest; a young woman turns her back to the elephantine vehicle in an attempt to stall its rampage. The photograph more compelling as you realise that the photographer’s proximity also puts him in jeopardy.

Another photo, by contrast, is of a young female ‘hippy’ (Linette Pyke) who massages the shoulders of a reclining police officer. She wears his cap and smiles, and the situation is relaxed, but the unsettling angle of the composition suggest much larger underlying tensions.

An unexpected inclusion are two large, gridded topographical drawings by a member of the Terania Native Forests Action Group, Michael Murphy: Rainforest Profile Terania Creek Basin,(ink on transparent paper, 1977) and Terania Creek Features (ink on transparent paper, 1980). The group had surveyed a transect through the subtropical rainforest and collected plant samples for identification. The renderings are meticulous – technical – but exquisitely beautiful as mementos.  According to Hugh Nicholson, in the accompanying wall-note recollections, the original drawings were ‘submitted to, and lost by, the State Government.’

If there are to be quibbles, they continue to be with frustrating curatorial choices and awkward traffic management. The dramaturgy of the journey through the forty framed photographs (whose format, uniform print size and framing provides little emphasis or rhythm) is unclear. The small display case in the centre of the room, over-crammed with a range of print ephemera, along  with the casually strewn road signage against the wall, are all additional obstructions. While the material from the fascinating documentary might have provided a personal, live dimension to the still photography, the TV monitor’s position in a corner (with a single dangling headset) limited its viewing and its full impact.

Nonetheless, the building and its enterprise – especially with the entire gallery given over completely to local artists at this time – presents as one of the significant cultural assets of the Northern Rivers region.

2 ½ stars: ★★☆

The Terania Creek Protest: David Kemp, Michael Murphy, Hugh Nicholson, Paul Tait and Jeni Kendall

Gallery 2

6 February – 7 April 2019 
Lismore Regional Gallery

John Senczuk
About the Author
John Senczuk is an arts scholar and theatre polymath; he writes on a range of subjects, but specialises in scenography and design, music theatre, Australian heritage drama and dramaturgy.