Kevin Shaw

Kevin Shaw 's work reflects a lifetime of political and social involvement in the Kimberley regions. But this would be reductive.

in fact continuing themes in Kevin Shaw's photography are people, peace and sustainable ecology; maintenance of Kimberley water as a social good; protecting Kimberley water from corporatisation/privatisation...

These are only echoes of a complex life spent in the KImberley region, which the book Mates ( see also Mates Collection) outlines in images and words.

  The Mates Collection

45 Framed photographs, various sizes.

The Mates Collection is an historic collection of photographs by Kevin Shaw , an Australian anthropologist and artist living and working in the Kimberley for the last nearly twenty years.
Mates is also a significant book, published in Australia in 2003 as well as an exhibit that has traveled Australia between 2004 and 2005. Mates, recently present in the Imagined Australia event of 2007 in Prato,Italy, is of historic relevance for many reasons.
First of all, images such as the Mates' pictures will not be taken again. Many of the people, protagonists of the collection, are not going to be there and certainly that type of life and its habitat may not be. The territories and the people are severely threatened by harsh conditions, poor health system, and constant mining interests in their land, to name just a few hazards of Kimberley life.

Perhaps more importantly Mates is a social contract between Kevin Shaw and the people who asked him to write the book and take their pictures. Mates is an extraordinary insight in the life and history of people who want to be known not as colonial subjects nor outcast; not as "Others" nor as "welfare dependent people": but as mates who have experienced for decades companionship in difficult as well as happy times, who have established with Kevin that rare reciprocal trust and productive understanding that makes every new day in the Kimberley worth living despite all obstacles and difficulties

Kevin Shaw created the book Mates: Images and Stories from the Kimberley in response to requests from the Mananambarra, the senior Indigenous Kimberley people with whom he worked when he administered the Aboriginal Heritage Protection legislation in the Kimberley. The Mates Collection of images that follows from the book is curated by the AILAE. Kevin is an artist, writer and grandfather who devotes his life to social and ecological justice. He is long time campaigner with displaced Indigenous people struggling to recover their homelands, and looks forward to the day when fossil fuel (suicide energy) is replaced by ecologically sustainable (non-nuclear) renewable energy.

Recent Interview with Kevin Shaw
http://www.abc.net.au/kimberley/stories/s1867867.htm

Article
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/16/1082055636816.html


Contact
kevinshawkimberley@gmail.com
kevinshaw@westnet.com.au

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