In The Aftermath

Em Readman discusses the place of creatives in disaster recovery in the aftermath of the Australian bushfire crisis.

I don't remember the Black Saturday bushfires. I was nine-years-old at the time, thinking about the school play and who I would play handball with next Monday. I learnt of that trauma through A Constant Hum by Alice Bishop as embers from the Morrison fires began to pick up in December 2019.  I read her collection of short stories, and as my newsfeed began to better compliment the events of her book, I took a moment of pause. Bishop's words taught me of a collective generational loss that I did not feel alongside the rest of the Australian population as it happened. In a way, I am glad for my naivety back then, because mass trauma of that scale is still hard to manage eleven years on. I have felt that collective loss firsthand, now.

 

I am endlessly thankful that I did not lose property, or family, or pets in the Morrison fires. I sat in placid Brisbane and watched the news roll in, as my family camping spots burned one at a time. The islands, farmland, ocean roads and beaches stood still as their skies turn red; I would turn off the news once the fire reached my campsite. The summers and Julys spent in a rusted Nissan Navara as we tore up dusty backroads faded to grey, coated with the remains of eucalyptus trees.

 

Then came the relief fund efforts. Thousands of creatives from Australia and beyond took to stages, and online stores and Instagram stories. Not to offer money that they don’t have, but to offer what they did. Their artistry.

 

Illustrations and comics of the bushfires went viral, spreading the word of what was happening in Australia internationally. Charity shirts were sold for the cause. Visual artists placed charity prints up online, promising to send the funds to bushfire and wildlife relief funds. Charity gig after charity gig popped up, with Gang of Youths, Baker Boy, Ruel, Kučka, Angus and Julia Stone, Ruby Fields, the Wiggles, Bernard Fanning, Adrian Eagle and the like heading the line ups. Tattoo artists and photographers opened up their books, exchanging flash sheets and headshots for donations to charities.

 

Celeste Barber raised over $50 million, $49 million more than the richest man on the planet. Kaylen Ward, a 20-year old sex worker from Los Angeles, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars by sending nudes to those who sent her proof of donation – she is also my definition of a Renaissance Woman.

I received a custom illustration from Eleonora Arosio, a drawing of me with a banksia flower, in return for a donation to WIRES. It is my favourite piece of art I own. I offered two-hours of copy editing in return for donations, which hardly felt like work at all.

Artwork by Eleonor Arosio

https://www.eleonoraarosio.com/

It is stereotypically, and accurately, known that artists do not have a lot of disposable income. They are busy, juggling artistry and business management and scraping to find the money for superannuation and taxes most of the time. We are not the most affluent of people in the financial sphere, to put it nicely. Arts funding applications have been slashed for a multitude of arts organisations, with those cuts still bleeding. Even the highest representative body for artists in Australia, the Department for Communications and the Arts, has been absorbed into roads and rail, with ‘the Arts’ dropping off the title entirely.

 

With a lack of bodies on the ground, funds or representation in the community, one would think that artists have every right to feel disenfranchised with the government and refuse to provide their services. It would be easy for us to take an esoteric view and decline our services to the broader community. However, the Arts sector has done arguably more for reparations in the wake of the Morrison fires than those in charge of policy, except for actual emergency services officers.

 

The money raised from artists in support of the victims of these fires is nothing short of extraordinary, but that is not all artists have contributed. Their work has created a narrative of the events of this fire season, solidifying the collective memory of what took place. Together, musicians, tattooists, illustrators, designers and artists began to heal an inexhaustible pain that arose in the aftermath, through the ashes.

 

Through countless songs and concerts and drawings, the work artists have done to commit the Morrison fires to national memory is monumental. The work is not over, like A Constant Hum, work like Alice Bishops will continue to arise and serve as a reminder to what took place long after the news cycle has moved on. As saplings grow, so does the memory of our collective loss this fire season and the artists who worked to find beauty in the cooling of the embers. 

Em Readman is a writer from Brisbane, Australia. Her work has been published in Orenda Magazine, FE*MS Zine, Concrescence, Good Material and others. In 2019, her poem Return was shortlisted for the QUT Allen & Unwin Undergraduate Writer's Prize. She is currently the Editor of GLASS Magazine. 

WORDS: EM READMAN
PHOTOGRAPHY: JAY HEIKE