Rallies

I have been wanting to say something about the anti mass immigration rallies held around Australia last Sunday (31/8). I wanted to talk about neo-Nazis marching in unison with the other protestors. How there was violence and given an opportunity to address the crowd on the steps of Parliament House, Victoria. I wanted to say how Australian society is reverting back into tribalism and moral decay with the ignorances, horrors and lessons of the 20th Century just forgotten in the polluted haze of 21st Century personal privilege and entitled outrage.

But alas, words have failed me.

I sit dumbfounded, trying to process the events from last Sunday and placing them amidst other global events that warrant attention.

I should make art. Yes, I should. But lately, that is a chore more than a pleasure. The weight of the world, though not mine to burden, seems oppressive still.

Going through my art practice over last couple of years, I found I have made images that relates directly to my angst, especially from the last couple of days.

One image I made in 2023 titled ‘Rally’. Nazi zombies gather around a small group including myself and others. What would be thought of as fanciful, ironic, comical even, manifested in something real last weekend. If my grandchildren ever ask ‘Do Nazi Zombies really exist Papa?’. I’ll have to answer ‘Yes…and they walk amongst us’.

Though photographed in 2023, I have re-rendered the original file, something to my new(er) visual sensibility.

Rally. 2023/25