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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

'This is our land', 2006

by Hari Ho

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2007 Finalist

'This is our land', 2006

This photograph was taken at a time when many in Aboriginal communities felt a strong suspicion that the Howard government had a hidden agenda to revoke the permit system in the Northern Territory which would then allow uranium mining on traditional Aboriginal land. There was at the time an acute political awareness about an impending land grab waiting only for a suitable excuse for it to happen. I asked Donald and Moses, traditional land owners whom I have come to know from previous trips to the Gunbalanya community, to sit on the land as they often do and to assert, with their hand on the land, directly to my camera 'This is our land'. As events turned out, their suspicions about the permit system being revoked were wholly justified.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2007
(More information, View all 75 photos)

Martin Mishkulnig
Tarcissius
Jem
In the shower

Related information

Dadang Christanto

'Buried in the beach'

Portrait story

Artist Dadang Christanto discusses his portrait taken by Hari Ho and how it relates to Dadang's sculpture 'Heads from the North'.
Lindy Lee - Birth and Death, 2006 by Robert Scott-Mitchell
Lindy Lee - Birth and Death, 2006 by Robert Scott-Mitchell
Lindy Lee - Birth and Death, 2006 by Robert Scott-Mitchell
Lindy Lee - Birth and Death, 2006 by Robert Scott-Mitchell

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2007

Previous exhibition, 2007

Photography is the most pervasive and popular medium for portraiture and makes a natural fit with the Gallery, being a natural extension of the Gallery's longstanding commitment to photography as a contemporary portrait medium.
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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

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