The imaging of Aborigines: Commitment to land rights

The assumption of some kind of pan-Aboriginality, even to the extent of regarding a photograph of one Aborigine as tantamount to a collective image, is the false premise on which much non-Aboriginal-Australians' imaging of Aborigines is based. The collapse of cultural differences into an unrealistic Aboriginal unity has been rightly condemned as insulting and ignorant. But the reverse is equally true: not all whites speak with one voice or click a shutter-release with the same finger. This essay sets out to examine the works of a few white photographers who went against the grain to be involved in Aboriginal causes, to make their services freely available to Aboriginal organisations, and to find photographic means of showing other whites something of the complexities of black and white relations.