with Beth Jackson and Louis Lim

28 November 2015 - 14 February 2016
State Library of Queensland,
Brisbane, Australia

Words are all I have is a series of personal reflections on the meaning of peace, from the perspective of individuals who have had a direct experience of war or its aftermath. Deeply felt thoughts reflect diverse individual experiences, including the perspectives of ex-soldiers, a former freedom fighter and child soldier, a former Prisoner of War, Aboriginal Australians, refugees and migrants, men and women. Peace, a state that seems at first self-evident, is revealed as a complex and elusive concept, both social and personal, imagined and tangible. Nevertheless, the interviews resonate with an almost singular voice of a shared, compassionate humanity.

The photographic portraits have been produced through a polaroid-based process. So while the large-scale close-up might have been an intrusive approach, the polaroid film, printed from a recovered negative, has a soft, dream-like quality, evoking the conjured paths of both memory and aspiration and a shared zone of intimate, peaceful reflection.

Words are all I have is a part of Peace and Quiet, a public programme led by Elizabeth Woods and Kevin Leong, in partnership with the State Library of Queensland, that sought to reveal the contradictory and contested nature of peace by collecting perspectives and gestures from Queenslanders situated on the borders of unrest.