Juno Gemes is one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary photographers. In words and images she has spent much of her long career documenting the lives and struggles of First Nations peoples, achieving significant recognition for her work. In 2003 the National Portrait Gallery exhibited her portraits of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander reconciliation activists and personalities in the show Proof: Portraits from the Movement 1978–2003, and acquired many of her photographs. Gemes was one of ten photographers invited to document that National Apology in Canberra in 2008. The Macquarie University Art Gallery held a survey exhibition of her work, The Quiet Activist: Juno Gemes, in 2019.
Her new book Until Justice Comes: Fifty Years of The Movement for Indigenous Rights: Photographs 1970 – 2024, is a significant collection of over 220 photographs, making visible the history of the First Nations people’s struggle for justice over the last fifty years in Australia, leading up to the Voice referendum of late 2023.
The photographs include portraits of political and cultural leaders, and intimate community events, as well as activism played out on the streets. Crucial moments in history are documented, including the Redfern Revolution, the land rights campaigns, the National Apology to the Stolen Generations, the election of eleven Indigenous Members to the 47th Federal Parliament, and the preparations for the 2023 Referendum on the Voice to Parliament.
As Rhonda Davies, a contributor to the book and senior curator at The Macquarie University Art Gallery, told Irresistible, “When you have the knowledge and depth of relationships that Juno has, the work is really valuable. There’s an add to people’s knowledge, both seen and emotional and oral. The book is just brilliant.”
Irresistible chatted to Juno about this latest collection and what’s she hopes will inspire the next wave of activists.
The book is going down really well. People love it.
Juno Gemes: Yes, people seem to be very moved by it. It does show this extraordinary invisible history which photography is the perfect medium to reveal. The liveliness and determination of the aboriginal struggle for human rights and for justice has taken so many different turns. I think some people are astonished by the variety of actions that have taken place across the country; within communities and at major events in our history, such as the Uluru Handback or the Apology. Attitudes changed and people were able to see what they hadn’t seen before. And that’s what the book is all about.
And there’s been positive feedback from the community?
It has been incredible. I was working up at Uluru at the Cultural Centre, with young Aṉangu people, and they would come every day to look through the book. Of course, they recognised plenty of people from events that took place in their own community, like Uluru Handback and the events around the 25th anniversary years later, but there are plenty of connections for them to photographs from Sydney as well; from rock concerts, theatre events and exhibitions all over the country. There are portraits of many Aboriginal heroes and heroines in the book which people will recognise. This book goes from the 1970s till now. So, there are images from when these leaders were young and beautiful and powerful, and everyone likes seeing those portraits.
You have some fantastic contributors to the book as well.
There are 19 essays in the book as well as the photographs. It’s just incredible. Fantastic writers like the Honourable Linda Burney MP, Rhonda Davies, Larissa Behrendt, Djon Mundine, Fred Myers, Frances Peters-Little, John Maynard, Catherine de Lorenzo, and Ali Cobby Eckermann. All these leading thinkers in cultural matters, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. At one event for the book at the State Library of NSW Jim Moginie from Midnight Oil played a song from the Makarrata. I’m including other warriors. There’s a big gang out there who’ve been working really hard for a long, long time to get these messages across.
Do you remember you first time you became involved in this kind of photography?
In 1970, I was part of the Yellow House Artists Collective in Potts Point, Sydney. It was an avant-garde gathering of artists, and while there, people thought I was going to do more of the multi-media events that I was known for, but in fact I’d already had an epiphany that I wanted to go to the Central Desert.
A year before I had been in England, and I’d had a dream that really affected me. I saw an Aboriginal elder come up towards me who had a little white beard, was wearing a red bandana and a checked shirt, and was carrying a sugar bag in his right hand. He sat on the ground beside me and patted the ground three times. It made me want to come home to Australia, but specifically to go to the desert.
Back in the Yellow House, an old partner of mine, a genius filmmaker called Mick Glasheen, had a small grant to make a film on the stories embedded in Uluru. As we were doing the research there, I suddenly had the very strong feeling that we can’t do this without finding out who these stories belong to. I knew I need to find out if they wanted this film made, request their permission and ask if they would be involved.
So, I said that I was going to find them. But of course, they found me.
And what happened?
It was something extraordinary. I was in a camp at Ebenezer Downs with Pitjantjara People, and out through the miasma of this red mist the same elder came towards me. Same bandana, white beard and checked shirt. Later I found out he was called Captain Number One, and he was a renowned Pitjantjatjara Lawman. He shot me a look, sat down, and patted the ground three times. It was a call. I realised he was calling me to do something. He told me all about the harsh conditions the Aboriginal people were living under. How they had nothing out on the reserves. How they were not allowed to speak their language or practice their culture. That enraged me and I understood in that moment that the Aboriginal people were holding their cultures together under the most oppressive circumstances. They were invisible, and most of the people in Australia knew absolutely nothing about them, their struggles, or indeed the ancient cultures they were upholding.
So you moved into photography then?
I thought a film may or may not be seen. Photography seemed more immediate and intimate to me. There’s a relationship between the viewer and what they’re looking at. Photographs are also portable, and can be published in newspapers, on exhibition walls, in all kinds of different settings. I felt that photography was what was needed to get the message across, which was much more complex than I ever realised. And that was why I actually took up the camera.
I’ve done other things; my husband the poet Robert Adamson and I had a publishing house called Paper Bark Press. We did a lot for poetry in Australia. I’m also a mother and a grandmother. But, the need to make Aboriginal peoples and culture visible from a culturally informed point of view really did become, and still is, one of the most important things in my life.
Did you study photography?
No, I was self- taught, but I’ve been studying the masters of photography for 50 years. I was given a grant early on to go to the Oxford photographic workshop, where I worked with some of the finest photographers in England. Someone called Peter Turner, who ran the best photographic magazine in England at the time called Creative Camera, sent me to do masterclasses with Lisette Model, who taught Diane Arbus. That was in Venice in 1979, during the only Venice Biennale that was entirely devoted to photography, so every day I was walking around going to see exhibitions with work by people like Edward Weston, Richard Avedon, and Martine Franck and Diane Arbus.
I’ve been incredibly lucky to meet fantastically talented people, who have often looked at what I was doing and said, do know about this or that, and I pick up on those clues. Whenever I can, whenever I’m near anybody who I think has got something to teach me I’ve tried to learn from them. It’s a pretty eccentric kind of way of learning, but it works for me.
Who are some of your favourite photographers from recent years?
I’ve loved Michael Riley’s work. Tracey Moffat is a favourite, as is Destiny Deacon.
Would you describe your work as reportage as something else?
I work in slow time. I’m not a photojournalist. I form relationships with people and I get to know them and the culture from which they come. I try and make images from within those relationships. That’s a different thing to straight art- news- photography or photojournalism.
Do you have a sense of which of your photographs had the most impact?
In 2003, I had an exhibition called Proof: portraits from the movement 1978-2003, at the National Portrait Gallery. The heroes and heroines of the movement that people had been hearing about for years could really be seen. It was tremendously well received and popular.
I was actually inside the parliament for the Apology to the stolen generations, and it was so moving, and with so many different groups coming together. Some very powerful images came from that.
Some others of my favourites are the stories from communities. I worked on Mornington island for three years, where people know their country so well they know exactly when to camp on the beach for the arrival of the sacred Dunna and Wanna fish, that only come in once a year.
The soundtrack of the movement has been a big part of my work as well. The music. The great collaborations with indigenous and non- indigenous musicians working together throughout the events and until now. People have been very moved by that work.
How would you describe the changes that Australia has gone through over the last few decades?
We have this story that goes from this great struggle to uphold the culture of the Aboriginal people, to Aboriginal art, music, and film being in the mainstream of Australian life. We now have eleven Indigenous politicians being elected to the last 47th parliament of Australia.
We are still going through a period of intense change, and I think that’s nothing to be afraid of, but something to embrace. Let’s have a real history at last, not one that’s hidden with fear and shame and not understanding each other and not knowing each other. The book is about helping people to know Aboriginal people and contemporary Australian history. It’s pretty damn exciting and it’s there for everyone.
In the worldwide lurch to the right, the fear is that some of this progress could be undone. What do you think is the best way to build community and empathy between people?
I think truth is essential. We’re in a very dangerous moment in our history, for all of us, for our children and for our grandchildren. It really calls on all of us not to be overwhelmed by it, but to hold firm to what we know to be true. To call out what we see as lies, and to do it with humour and kindness, not by polarising people, but to try and wake people up. We must hang on to our joy. We must share what we think is true and beautiful and look out for each other. Empathy is key. Just remember that even those people who are misguided and lost are going to have a terribly awakening, so it’s a moment when humanity has to reach for its most courageous and most vocal, most heartfelt and most unshakeable determination, not to let these bastards win.
And what do you think is an Australian flavour to that kind of resistance?
Humour and courage are great. I love satirical songs. If you find a good one, pass it around it around. It’s a great way of debunking people who think they are so important now. When people can see through the destructive messaging that’s going on it’s very powerful. Australians are so good at that kind of humour, in music, theatre, photographs, whatever form you have it in. Cartoons are great. Share the truth, because it can be hard to see through all the lies and manipulation that’s going on at every level and across so many media.
The Australian election is around the corner. How are you feeling about that?
I’m tremendously encouraged by the way people have woken up to Peter Dutton and see that he’s not got an idea to bless himself with, and that he keeps borrowing from Trump’s playbook. We can’t let these very destructive ideas come in because there’s nothing but pain and misery to be got from them.
I was looking just this morning at something that the Congress in the USA has done. This is how horrific it is in America. They’ve ratified a bill that’s going to make it much harder for women to vote, because you have to have an ID card that matches your birth certificate. Now, a lot of women have a different married name. It’s a new disenfranchisement of voters. Along with women, it will affect minorities, the homeless. It is horrific. We don’t need any of that kind of thing here in Australia.
We can vote for people that are going to help us care for each other, to try to create an equal society where we can all respectfully share in this great culture, the oldest culture on earth, where we happen to be, among our hosts in this country. So much has been gained over the last 50 years, we need to guard it with our vote. And we can hold our own. We’re smart and we’ll be able to forward.
What would you love to see as policy priorities?
We have environmental catastrophe on our doorstep. We have floods, and droughts. We need to have a much stronger environmental policy. We need to listen to Indigenous people on care of Country so we can learn how to look after our lands and seas. There’s so much good work that can be done and we’re on the precipice; it’s become absolutely essential that we do it.
What have you witnessed in that care for Country?
I’ve seen how deeply Aboriginal people know their Country. It’s not only Indigenous people here, it’s Indigenous people all over the world where their culture is strong. They hold the earth laws. They hold the song for the regeneration of everything that lives. Also, they know the climate, they’ve been living with the climate here for 65,000 years. They know what to do in the Dry. They know where to burn, how to burn, how to manage the environment. We need to listen and learn from their practices.
I’ve just been in Central Australia where the Aṉangu are reintroducing a threatened species of lizard, the Tjakura, its a gorgeous pink, like a coral stone, beautiful. They are working with scientists to do that. They’re using tech and are monitoring where the lizards are. There’s this fantastic coming together of science and traditional knowledge, which is the absolute key to environmental welfare, and that is happening in traditional communities everywhere and young Rangers are caring for Country.
Who are some of your early activist heroes?
In 1964 my mother bought home a book from the Museum of Modern Art called Nothing Personal, which is a collaboration between Richard Avedon the photographer, and James Baldwin the American civil rights leader. That is still my favourite combination. This book has been like a map for me because it sought out to analyse American society with photography and text and via all the great minds of the time in every walk of society. They were really trying to unstitch the history of racism.
I have portrait of James Baldwin in the book. In 1976 I was going to these workshops in England, and I saw that he was giving a talk at the ICA. It was about how racism has been embedded in the way Anglo-Saxon use language, even in the Bible. Afterwards, I stood in a conga line of fans and when it came to my turn I told him I’d love to have a portrait session with him and that I worked with the movement for Indigenous rights. His eyes opened wide and he said he’d squeeze me in between The Times and The Observer the next day.
What do you know about the historical links between rights movements in Australia and the USA?
Professor John Maynard and others have written about the correspondence that took place between the civil rights movement in the USA and the Aboriginal civil rights movement in Australia, as far back as the 1930. In the 70s I went with Mum Shirl to places like Murawina, and the Aboriginal Children’s Service, which had a program for Aboriginal kids to make sure they had a decent breakfast before they went to school. They talked about how they learnt about the program from the Black Power movement in the States. Some of their strategies were taken up by Aboriginal leaders here because they were effective. They answered real needs. It was solidarity. Learning from each other. You know, a fascist will always present to someone who thinks they know everything. A radical will always present as someone who’s ready to learn something more.
Young people can feel a bit despondent the way things are going, around rights and the climate. What would you want to say to them to inspire them?
You can’t be overwhelmed by the negativity. You have to be the standard bearers of positive thought, and the generation that will not let up. You must demand climate change action from government of every level, and you have to keep pushing for it with smarts, with humour, with a smile on your face, and with a belief that justice is achievable. Justice and respect for all as a nation, justice for the environment. You are the warriors now. You haven’t got time to have despair. Despair gets you nowhere. Kick it out the door. You can’t afford it. You have too much to do! You have to lead to a healing path forward.
