Big hART GOLD's photostream

IS Australia drying? Or drowning? Are we in the grip of accelerated climate change or is this just a normal weather pattern that we haven’t previously experienced? Is Mother Nature leading us along the right path? Or down the garden path?

There is continual debate in the media aiming to examine issues of climate change and water and their effects on Australia’s economy and environment. Alongside this debate, using multiple art forms, the GOLD Project aims to examine these same issues and their effects on both personal narratives and on the narrative of this country.

Using artists working alongside young participants, the GOLD Project is recording the stories and histories of farming individuals and families. It is co-creating and collating an enormous series of personal portraits. Together farmers, artists and young people are collaborating on works of art that reveal the experiences and emotional weather of those Australians directly facing the consequences of climate change.

An interest in the narratives that shape this nation is at the forefront of all of Big hART’s work. Much of Australia’s cultural identity has been shaped by the pioneers who opened up this country for agriculture, and subsequently by those who have farmed the land since. The expression 'a nation built on the sheep's back' is testimony to that.

With the onset of climate change there is a suggestion that agriculture in this country may be at a cross-roads. Could farming families be Australia’s first refugees of climate change? If we are witnessing significant changes in rural communities, then these changes in our narrative must be documented. With these changes come a multitude of social impacts on health, education, and employment as well as the more widespread implications caused by low crop yields and reduced livestock. GOLD aims to include in national debate these perspectives of farming families who experience the effects of these changes first hand.

BIG hART has been finding gold in the Murray-Darling Basin since 2006. This gold is in the form of stories, photo-
graphs, music and films about the social impact of climate change on farming families and young people.

The gold we unearth comes from people willing to share their stories of survival, resilience, heartbreak and love during the worst drought on record.

This process is displayed throughout the GOLD website and will inform a variety of presentations over the coming years including exhibitions, performances and conferences and in the media.

GOLD has many layers, involving film, photography, music and theatre making as well as education, skills development, crime prevention, social justice, community development and participation, and policy research.

We invite you to have a look around and say hello at www.au.org.au