NGV Triennial 2020, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
I read recently an article published by Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, the largest grassroots environmental organisation in the United States, entitled ‘Pulling down our monuments’.
1Michael Brune, ‘Pulling down our monuments’, 22 July 2020,
The Sierra Club, accessed 14 Sep. 2020. In this article the club, one of the United States’s foundational conservation organisations, acknowledged the racist attitudes and support of white supremacy by its founder, John Muir. The article came as somewhat of a shock and surprise, as I clearly remember that in the 1990s, while I was studying environmental science, he was viewed with reverence. The article made me curious to consider the origins and trajectory of what we commonly, and righteously, call conservation.