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The project Manuwangku, Under the Nuclear Cloud, for which I received Amnesty International’s Human Rights Innovation Fund Grant in 2010, is focused on an Aboriginal community under threat. Muckaty is situated on Warlmanpa country, 120 km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. Traditional owners call this area Manuwangku. In 2007, the Northern Land Council nominated the Muckaty Land Trust as a fourth potential site for the dumping of radioactive waste in Australia. This has generated justifiable fear and concern among the local Aboriginal community. They have responded with ongoing protests defending their right to live in a clean and safe environment, free of hazardous waste. There was no dumped nuclear waste or even receptacles where they would be placed. I was looking at a community which was under that threat and had to find ways to document the fall outs of that threat. Its been touted that nuclear waste will be dumped at Middle of Nowhere. However, the spaces – both private and public – that I photographed was anything but it. It was vibrant and full of activities. It was their land with which their lives are so closely intertwined. I saw their day to day activities as protests that were at times overt and at others inconspicuous and subtle. Living there and experiencing a deep socio-cultural life was a rewarding experience and a great privilege. In Muckay I attempted to document the spirit, connection to land and the collective voice of the community. “Manuwanku, Under the Nuclear Cloud” is my respectful observation of the Muckaty community. It is in a way a testimony of an overwhelming conflict on one hand and on the other the resilience of a people in their resistance to the conversion of their traditional lands into a dumping ground for nuclear waste. |
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