In 2012, art historian Abigail Solomon-Goddeau said that Rosemary Laing’s (1959-2024) “artwork is not only of the highest quality, but her ethical and political convictions and ideas are models of what it means to be a ‘responsible’ image maker.” This observation gets to the heart of Laing’s approach to photography. At once theatrical and hauntingly ethereal and rooted in the issues at the heart of modern society, the artist consistently reminds us to question what we see. In this, she joins a long tradition of creatives who blur the lines between art and activism. From Jean-Michel Basquiat’s powerful paintings that touch on racism and poverty, to Ai Weiwei’s unwavering comments of censorship and freedom of speech, art persists in telling us something about our world. Galerie Lelong presented the first exhibition of Laing’s work in 2002, and now presents a moving tribute to the artist after she passed away in May of this year. Featuring photographs that comment on Indigenous rights, climate change and the use of land, the exhibition highlights that Laing’s four decade career remains as timely and relevant as ever.
It is impossible to appreciate Laing’s work without understanding it’s place in the wider narrative of events that impacted Australian cultural consciousness. Her work intersected with current political and social issues in the country, and she often orchestrated shoots in historically resonant locations. Informed by post-colonial perspectives on the occupation and ownership of land, Laing’s early works firmly root themselves in ongoing national conversations about Indigenous rights. Aboriginal Australians have lived on the continent for more than 65,000 years, and it is estimated that 3% of the population have Indigenous heritage. British settlers began colonising the nation in 1788, and soon epidemics ravaged communities and around 270 massacres of Aboriginal Australians occurred during the following 140 years. In recent years, the struggle for rights and recognition has continued for this population, and in 2023, a referendum rejected the proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in the country’s constitution.

Laing’s groundspeed (2001) was shot in Morton National Park on the New South Wales Coast. The series sees patterned carpets painstakingly laid on the forest floor. The vivid juxtaposition recalls European settlers’ attempts to stake their claim on the Australian bush, making a home of the foreign landscape. The poignant images also draw our attention to the displacement of what came before – a striking metaphor for the treatment of Indigenous people. Her following series Bulletproofglass (2002) sees a wounded bride suspended in mid-air. The blood splattered white wedding dress signals a loss of hope and innocence, and the undertone of violence reflects a sense of disillusion. The work is informed by the unsuccessful Republican referendum which took place in 1999, and the refusal of the federal government under John Howard to apologise to Aboriginal people for their historical treatment.


As Laing’s work progressed, her attentions turned to another major issue in today’s world – the climate crisis. Long considered to be lagging behind other nations, Australia struggled for many years to reach an enduring consensus about even the core elements of a policy response to the catastrophe. Even today, almost twenty years after Laing began calling for action through her photography, Australia continues to provide a mixed response to climate change. In May 2024, the government announced that it was to ramp up its extraction and use of gas until “2050 and beyond”. The Weather (2006) sees a figure blown around in a whirlwind of shredded paper. Upon closer inspection, we realise that each scrap is made up of newspaper articles discussing climate change, environmental concerns and extreme weather. Unlike her earlier series, which were shot in natural landscapes, there is a lack of backdrop here, suggesting the removal or destruction of the environments with which we are familiar. The blankness of the background adds to a sense of disorientation and the idea that the woman is spinning out of control.


A throughline of Laing’s work, underpinning her work on Indigenous rights, climate change and the Australian landscape, is the relationship between photography and reality. Writer and curator Julie Ewington said: “in her hands, photography becomes not a copying of reality – if it ever was – but a series of questions about how one sees, and particularly how one sees with a camera.” She abandoned digitally altering and manipulating her images in 1996, and the subsequent 20 years saw her capture real-time performance and physical installations. The result is all the more surreal for knowing that it is unaltered. We can once again return to the falling bride of Bulletproofglass. The series is a result of complex choreographed performance with a professional stuntwoman on location in the Blue Mountains. The tension between the other-worldly images of a bloodied woman suspended in the air, all of which seem supernatural and outside of the realms of reality, and the knowledge that the images are authentic, remind the viewer to question their own perception. This is a lesson that Laing teaches again and again in her photography – all is not always what it seems, and we must question what is put in front of us.
A Tribute: Selected Works is at Galerie Lelong until 16 August: galerielelong.com
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
Rosemary Laing, bulletproofglass #3, 2002, C Type photograph on metallic paper.
Rosemary Laing, groundspeed (Rose Petal) #17, 2001, C Type photograph.
Rosemary Laing, bulletproofglass #3, 2002, C Type photograph on metallic paper.