The murray river matters/ Ramonda Te Maiharoa and Jane Zusters opening first april at the Newcastle University Gallery, GS Building, University Drive,Callaghan NSW 2308
blessing by AnneTe Maiharoa-Dodds
image by Ramonda Te Maiharoa
Recently Ramonda Te Maiharoa and Jane Zusters journeyed from the Murray river mouth at Goolwa to the Hume Dam photographing their impressions of this ravaged wonderland as a cautionary tale facing their Canterbury rivers, which the NZ government wants to fast track irrigation schemes for more intensive farming.
Settler culture has created a vision in which the water of the Murray has been stored, regulated and allocated for human consumption and economic production. The relationships between people, water, clay, reeds, insects yabbies, birds, grasses, trees and the needs of the river have been discounted. The resulting over allocation of water and resulting destruction of freshwater ecology demands a rethink of water management, law and policy.
The launch of Singing in the lifeboat – the art of Jane Zusters at Mark Hutchins Gallery, 218a Willis St, Wellington, on the tenth of August
