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Glenn Campbell – Homelands
Homelands is a body of work consisting of photographs taken in Australian aboriginal communities in the remote areas of the Central Desert, Western Australia and Arnhem Land.
I started thinking about recording Homelands issues when I was on assignment on the Afghan/Pakistan Border in October 2001. I was photographing in a refugee camp near Quetta, full to the brim with Afghan refugees, thinking that somehow none of this was new to me….how so? Having grown up in the North West of Australia?
The smells, the children so excited, desperate for the diversion that the tall white fella provided from the crushing boredom of a life without hope, the adults, shamed into lethargy by their inability to pull themselves out of a mire not of their own making… I’d seen it before in the camps and out stations where the Aborigines had gathered on the edges of town, in the remote deserts and coastlines… refugees in their own country.
My interests in the overall concept of Homelands stems from a personal rejection of the casual racism that I was brought up with – the pressure to conform to hate and ambivalence – and a deep underlying curiosity and suspicion about my own attachment to the land, this country… How can such an attachment be valid when the first Australians are living in conditions you wouldn’t keep a dog in?
I returned to Australia with a resolve to work further in the Aboriginal communities of the Central Desert and Arnhem Land, where in the photographic depiction of the Aboriginal world all I could find was a reflection of a past that is lost and of a future without hope.
I moved to the Northern Territory in 2004 to be closer to the people and places I was driven to photograph, to find stories of hope and progress in communities where they were thin on the ground.
If successful lives are built in the Homelands, stories can be told and successful communities will follow and with that the recovery of a vibrancy in this “other Australia” that is critical to the future of my country.
Parts of this body of work were shot whilst on assignment for the Age and Sydney Morning Herald Newspapers and are used partnership with the communities involved.
Bio:
Glenn Campbell does not sing country music.
What he used to do was work in a mine and regularly blow things up,he also worked in a roadhouse where he served beer to drunks, then fill their cars and send them on their way.
What he does now is travel across Australia and South East Asia from his base in Darwin, taking photographs for a living and sometimes shakes his head and really can’t believe his luck.
He is happy being where everyone else is not, otherwise what’s the point?
Photographs: Glenn Campbell
Website: www.glenncampbellspictures.com
Editor’s Note: Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..
Many thanks… david alan harvey
Glenn,
first of all Jim points never influenced me, it just make me kindly laughing.
I had enough respect for photographers to not be such a stupid guy!
Probably all the positiv and ecstasy reactions pushed me to say my own thinking, in few words, because I deeply think that we are not on flickr. As far as I respect Burn, this more and more when I see the real work done and by David and also the contributors.
About my critics, I think I saied shortly what I think. Not about the project itself, it seems to be a good spot to document, not about the text, never the text because at this “online” level it have no interest, images never have to illustrate a text to my eyes, or it mean that images are not good. I just read when it’s published, and even this sometime I never read. One photos is supposed to be able to have 1000 words…so it’s enough… I like words but in other books.
I will check your website, but the link you sent (from imants) doesn’t work anymore! I am curious and also, as a photographer, I now perfectly that an editing can change everything.
But what I will think after your website is another thing, here on Burn I think what I told.
I had been doing this kind of reportage for 10 years. When I started photojournalism I would had love your work. But the photojournalists who was really surprising me 10 years ago, today, after years of personnal experiences had made some words disapeared of my own language and forgot some photographers names.
So I re-reads your photographs and it really confirmed to me my words of yesterday, even that I would be more critical today because some editing mystake show that it’s not clear what it aim to say and be at the end.
You know how to compose one image but something miss in this general editing and this even you had some greats images, technics and colors made some punchy photographs and honnestly I am really bored about punchy picts…those picts I loved when I was younger. Ok sometime but only and always this form make it superficial to my eyes… Keep the spot and go far…
Glenn,
You have shown us a beautiful, captivating set of images which I have enjoyed immensely. I’m left confused by some of the comments here. Sure, maybe the beauty could detract from the desperation of the subjects. Perhaps there is a different edit… But I’m guessing that you have been as exacting with the content of your images as you have been with technique that you demonstrate. For me you have hinted at enough – I don’t need to see any more pictures of grinding poverty – we all understand that now. What I want to see are images that invite me into relationship with your subject – that invite me to care. These images do that. Thank you.
water..
children..
splash..
play…
life
and
death…
symbols…..
ssshhhh…..
you brought me there..
with them….
dogs and all…..
shadows…
footballs and basketball……
fire
BuRNING
bright……..
xoxoxoxxo
****
The link works just wait for the ad to be completed
http://player.sbs.com.au/programs#/programs_08/fullepisodes/firstaustralians/playlist/First-Australians-Episode-1-They-Have-Come-To-Stay/
glenn, what i like about your work, is that theres very little superficial “pretender” in presenting such a place/society. usually in similar cases, the civilized eye and mind has romantic sympathy or prejudices, or both at once. beneath the prejudices lies the very intuitive judgement – perception of primitiveness and almost ortho-dox view of what is a progressive society. in your work, theres something honest, direct, without sweet melodrama or urban-man context.
I’ve never been to Australia and would love to visit one day but I certainly enjoyed this trip.