Ancestral Dreams

Pete Walsh

Ancestral Dreams

Pete Walsh

Opening event:
Thursday 11 May 5:30pm

To be opened by Jane Hutchinson, co-CEO Pollination Foundation, Tasmanian Australian of the Year 2016 and co-founder of the Tasmanian Land Conservancy.

Daily opening times:
11 – 21 May, 2023
10AM-5PM

Ancestral Dreams is an exhibition of photography examining our connection to nature, literally and metaphorically, focusing on trees in the forests of Tasmania/lutruwita as a reflection of our human condition. Viewers are invited to look twice and find their own emotional and empathetic response to nature through personal experience.

Ancestral Dreams is an exhibition of photography examining our connection to nature both literally and metaphorically. Initially started as a small study in 2016, an arts residency at the Cradle Mountain Wilderness Gallery expanded the work considerably and includes the National Park, the Vale of Belvoir and the eastern edge of the Tarkine/takayna.

This collection includes images focusing on trees as “equivalents” to our human condition, drawing on the evolution of the tradition established by early 20th century photographer Alfred Stieglitz and advanced over time by others including Edward Weston, John Cato and Tasmania’s own Peter Dombrovskis.

The resulting work portrays the wilderness of Tasmania/lutruwita with an emotive and poetic sensibility. It asks the viewer to look twice and find their own emotional and empathetic response to nature through personal periods of ecstasy, solitude, peace, familial connection and awareness of our own mortality.

For artist Pete Walsh, whose previous work has focused on conservation and anthropogenic impact on the environment, this more current practice has also resulted in a sympathetic and deeper respect for Indigenous understanding around connection to nature, kinship in country. This more spiritual aspect of the work invites the reader to ponder on questions of how we understand, manage and respect the land we rely on for our existence.