The Flash of Recognition: Photography and the emergence of Indigenous rights

Description

As a student, Jane Lydon was shocked by the photograph on the cover of Charles Rowley's 1970 classic, The Destruction of Aboriginal Society, which showed two Aboriginal men in neck-chains. In this original and highly illustrated book she uses photography to tell a bigger story of the struggle for Aboriginal rights in Australia. While many of the images are confronting, the book tells the positive story of the way in which photography has been used as a tool for change and to argue for recognition of our shared humanity. Starting at the turn of the twentieth century and continuing to the NT Intervention in the present, the book includes more than 60 images taken from newspapers and journals, as well as the work of contemporary artists.

Dr. Jane Lydon is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies at Monash University in Melbourne. She has worked as a historical archaeologist for over twenty years, including as archaeologist responsible for the Rocks, Sydney and as curator archaeologist at the Museum of Sydney on the site of First Government House. Her publications include Fantastic Dreaming: The Archaeology of an Aboriginal Mission (2009, Altamira Press), awarded the Australian Archaeological Association's 2010 John Mulvaney Book Award, Handbook to Post colonialism and Archaeology , (co- edited with Uzma Z. Rizvi, 2010, World Archaeological Congress) and Eye Contact: Photographing Indigenous Australians (2005, Duke University Press).