Capturing the diversity of social unrest

Portraits From the Street: Photography and screen prints from protests and demonstrations
By Doug Beal
Reviewed by Sophie Villis Above one photograph of a child holding a peace banner the question is asked: "1995, the year of tolerance?". With 32 other photos providing evidence of the frequency and diversity of social protest and demonstration, Doug Beal suggests otherwise. As a first-year photography student, Beal found himself attending rally after rally intrigued with the potency of emotion and social interaction. He told Green Left Weekly that rallies are not one-off affairs. Every demonstration, whether it be a protest against education cuts, the closure of high schools, nuclear testing, or the privatisation of the water works, forms but a single chapter in an ongoing story about the political neglect for the public's voice and their services. Beal's work, on display in Adelaide's Access Gallery throughout November, highlighted the diversity of people who have attended protests this year. Workers, professionals and the unemployed, children and the elderly have all taken to the streets in outrage. As real life experience increasingly contradict the establishment media's portrayal of events, social unrest is growing; as Beal said, at no rally was there ever any sign of a "rent-a-crowd". Some pictures were close-ups, capturing individual emotion, such as the fear and concern among those attending the anti-racism rallies. Others were wide-angled shots of chanting crowds and banners that captured an atmosphere of social empowerment. Not only did this exhibition serve as an important historical record of social change in the '90s, but it was also an inspiring demonstration of the way in which one person can carry the impact of a rally further than the event itself.