​

Flying Foxes and Disappearing Trees

Lisa Roberts

​

20 September - 19 October 2019

​

Special opening event 5.30pm Friday 20 September | All welcome | Free

Trees make rain: We wonder why the wind keeps blowing and why it doesn’t rain. Old intact forests, not only make rain locally, but also hundreds of kilometres away.

January 2019: They were young and beautiful, and they were dying. Some fell out of the trees, some crawled down and died on the ground. Some left this life still gripping the branch. Babies clung to dead mothers, and struggling mothers held dead babies. The heat was relentless, and the suffering went on and on as death worked its way through 2000 or more flying-foxes in Bairnsdale.

Behind this mass death is a history of persecution and on-going conquest. It is a history of destruction of forests, refuge areas, blossoms and nectar. Be warned: Flying foxes are the canaries in our relentless coalmine.

Image: Lisa Roberts, Flying in the Face of Adversity #101, Archival inkjet photograph