Ian Terry: Uninnocent Landscapes: following George Augustus Robinson’s Big River Mission

For more than two years Ian Terry followed the route of George Augustus Robinson’s 1831 Big River Mission, which was credited with ending frontier violence in Van Diemen’s Land. Accompanied by 13 Aboriginal envoys Robinson spent two months walking around central Tasmania before meeting 26 survivors of the Lairmerrener and Paredarerme people west of Lake Echo promising them that if they stopped resisting invasion and agreed to exile they would later be able to return to their Country. They accompanied Robinson to Hobart and after meeting with Governor Arthur were transferred to Flinders Island. They never returned to Country. Ian’s project was to photograph the landscapes the Big River Mission passed through as an act of documentation of change and truth-telling about colonisation and dispossession.

Ian Terry has worked as an outdoor tour guide, heritage officer at the Parks and Wildlife Service, freelance historian and heritage consultant, and, most recently Senior Curator of Cultural Heritage at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Among the many exhibitions he curated at the museum was Our Land: Parrawa, Parrawa! Go Away! which examined the history of frontier conflict in Tasmania.

Jointly sponsored by the State Library and Archive Service of Tasmania and the Professional Historians Association Vic & Tas, the Libraries Tasmania Talks are a series of monthly public lectures held at the Hobart Library. They can be attended free at the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts or viewed online via the Webinar.

To register for the event visit the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts website.

You can listen to all previous lectures on their Soundcloud website.