PROOF: Portraits from the Movement 1978 - 2003 Juno Gemes
A new photography exhibition captures the personalities and events that have set Australia on the path to reconciliation.
It featured trailblazers such as Pat O'Shane, Ernie Dingo, Charlie Perkins, Lois O'Donoghue, Jimmy Little, Lyall Munro and Gary Foley. Moments captured at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1983, the Ceremonial handing back of Uluru in 1985 and the Reconciliation Walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 2000 are among more than 30 photographs by Juno Gemes documenting the fight for formal recognition of Indigenous Australia.
Over the past 30 years, Juno Gemes has amassed a unique and important visual record commemorating the history of the struggle, as well as the achievements and growing commitment to reconciliation by government and community.
The exhibition marked 40 years since the landmark 1967 Referendum, which for the first time saw Aboriginal people included in the national census and given the same citizen rights as other Australians.
Proof captured the turning points in Indigenous history, events that have shaped the reconciliation process now underway – events that have both shamed and celebrated Australia as a nation and the continuing struggle and pathway to reconciliation