Australia is the driest populated continent on the planet and yet it is covered with evidence of water: rivers, creeks, washes and wetlands.
This collection-in-focus exhibition explores Australians’ relationships with their waterways, in a land of drought and flood.
The First Australians survived in both the driest and wettest of places, living with plenty and scarcity. Europeans brought with them a different mindset, one formed over thousands of years in the northern hemisphere. They sought to shape the environment to serve their existing cultural, social and economic ideas and support a growing population. Dams, reservoirs, tunnels and pumps are evidence of that.
Rivers: Lifeblood of Australia was curated by Ian Hoskins, author of the NLA Publishing title Rivers: The Lifeblood of Australia.
About the Book
In this broad-ranging survey of ten Australian waterways and river systems, Ian Hoskins presents a history of our complex connections to water.
Image at top: Edward Thomson, Clarence River, near Dr. Dobie's, New South Wales, c.1848, nla.cat-vn2156723
