Kennedy Hill is an Aboriginal community in the remote town of Broome in the Kimberley, in the North West of Australia. The community exists in the shadows of Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett’s commitment to close down approximately 100-150 Aboriginal communities in Western Australia. There are more than 270 remote Indigenous communities in Western Australia, home to 12,000 people. Aboriginal Elders and Leaders are shocked and feel closing down communities is a big threat to their people. They believe the impact of such a move will be devastating. Communities are based ‘on Country’. Closing down communities means losing connection to the land in which ancient stories are etched. To Aboriginal people, losing Country is not just like losing a home in the sense of losing a roof over your head. Losing Country is losing the connection to everything that ties them and is tied to that Country; Community, Language, Kin, Law, Culture. Aboriginal people all over the Kimberley are now in fear of losing not only their homes but losing the significant connection to their land and sacred sites. The question now remains, which Aboriginal communities will be closed?
“I’ve always been appalled by the way the Aboriginal people were treated and it just disturbed and disgusted me, so I decided to have a closer look and started mingling with Aboriginal people about four years ago. At first I spent time in the little bush camps where they were carving Boab nuts and where they were eating and drinking, and I started taking portraits. I always gave them the images and they were always received with a big smile. That was my reward, the smiles on their faces, so we started a relationship and that relationship became stronger and more intense. Then I started documenting daily life like funerals, hunting, family fights, a wedding and little family moments. Then over six months ago I felt the need to document just one community, and that became Kennedy Hill.
Why? First of all I was appalled that people are living in such poverty in a country like Australia, which is so rich.People are living in very old and unmaintained houses in Broome, a tourist mecca where people fly in from all over the world to enjoy this beautiful place. The Community of Kennedy Hill seemed to me like a different planet sitting there on ‘pristine real estate’ and I was just annoyed about the negativity about Aboriginal people. Like I always say, ‘When there are different cultures living together, you should sit with one another and learn from each other and respect each other’s cultures and ways, this is the only way forward’.â€
Kennedy Hill is an Aboriginal community in the remote town of Broome in the Kimberley, in the North West of Australia. The community exists in the shadows of Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett’s commitment to close down approximately 100-150 Aboriginal communities in Western Australia. There are more than 270 remote Indigenous communities in Western Australia, home to 12,000 people.
Aboriginal Elders and Leaders are shocked and feel closing down communities is a big threat to their people. They believe the impact of such a move will be devastating. Communities are based ‘on Country’. Closing down communities means losing connection to the land in which ancient stories are etched. These stories inform about morals, values and relationships, and are reinforced in Language through song and story at times of ceremony or travel through that Country –there used to be 250 Aboriginal languages before White Invasion. By closing down communities, ancient knowledge that has been passed down through generations will get lost and people will be lost because of this disconnection that nurtures them physically, emotionally and spiritually. Consequently, poverty, disadvantage, alcoholism, unemployment, etc. –which are contained within communities because of ongoing cultural connection– will be relocated and intensified and brought to the bigger towns. History is repeating itself!
Australian award-winning Photojournalist Ingetje Tadros has spent four years working with Aboriginal people and has been documenting their confronting daily lives within their communities. Her concerns for Aboriginal people and their communities stretch from the old uninformed line that demonises Aboriginal men by insinuating that Aboriginal women and children are under great threat by the men in the communities, to a lack of affordable accommodation; Over seven per cent of the Kimberley population is homeless and ninety per cent of this homelessness is comprised by its First Peoples.
Kennedy Hill, or as the locals refer to it, ‘The Hill’ is significant to Indigenous people in the region.The presence of a large shell midden immediately adjacent to the community is testament to this significance; It’s been a living area and a sacred place since before White Invasion... since time in memorial.
Aboriginal people all over the Kimberley are now in fear of losing not only their homes but losing the significant connection to their land and sacred sites. The question now remains, which Aboriginal communities will be closed?