Black Lives Matter, Martin Place Installation Image

"As a Gomeroi yinnar photographer, it has always been my responsibility to bring our stories into the public domain, to connect and engage audiences with images through a black lens. For most of my life, I have documented the diversity of Aboriginal experiences: politics, sport, dance, song, community, family. These works provide an insight into what it means to be a First Nations person surviving and thriving in a colonial world.”

These three striking images could easily be on the front page of any major newspaper. They capture moments of protest and remembrance, dynamic stories of individual and collective action unfolding across public spaces. Barbara McGrady’s images frequently centre Indigenous stories and activism, while parsing the local, national and global within a single frame. The dramatic scaling-up of these photographs, which predominantly circulate online, serves as a gesture of memorial towards the moments they witness. The images also serve as testimonials to the urgent continued struggles and unfinished stories they are imbedded within.