PUBLIC TALK: Unsettling Progress

'The advent of the white man with his ready-made civilization has violently disturbed the delicate balance of nature established for centuries in the most isolated of continents', wrote historian W.K.Hancock in 1930. Certainly for many colonists 'progress' in environmental terms equated to transformation: forests into farms, deserts into mines. This talk explores some of the less well-known stories of those who sought to adapt, to work with and protect the landscape, and asks whether they constituted a challenge to the dominant narrative of progress. Dr. Andrea Gaynor is an environmental historian and Lecturer in History at UWA.

This talk is in relation to the exhibition 'A Parched Progress: Landscapes of Australia' on display at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery until 5 June.