Published on Tuesday, 27 May 2025 at 3:50:50 PM

A striking new photographic exhibition opens at Albany Town Hall this week and invites visitors to reflect on the transformation of Western Australia’s landscape through a historical and cultural lens.

TERRA is a solo exhibition by photographer and historian John Toohey who, through a series of panoramic photographs and text panels, explores the reconstruction of landscape since colonisation, offering a poetic and unsettling visual essay on memory, land and identity.

The exhibition is centred around three interconnected narratives: South Land, Blood and Bone, and Basin and Range.

City of Albany Manager Arts and Culture Paul Nielsen said TERRA presents a layered and confronting view of Western Australia’s past.

“This exhibition invites people to reflect on what’s been lost and to see the land through a different lens—one that questions long-held ideas,” he said. “The work doesn't spell everything out, but it encourages viewers to think deeply about what they see.”

Basin and Range interprets geological history from ancient formations to the present.

South Land recasts the coastlines first named by the Dutch in the seventeenth century, including De Witt’s Land, Leeuwin Land and Nuyts Land—names given to parts of the coastline that were charted but largely imagined, as the Dutch seldom made landfall.

Blood and Bone challenges the standard depiction of early settlers as resilient in the face of hardship, reframing history through acts of violence and madness reported in the press.

TERRA will be on display at Albany Town Hall from May 29 to June 21.

For more information, visit albany.wa.gov.au or contact the City of Albany’s Arts and Culture team.

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