Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Honourable Speaker, This Vanishing World: Photography of Olegas Truchanas, is a new exhibition at Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery. Olegas Truchanas was a revered Tasmanian wilderness photographer and adventurer. He was a post-war Lithuanian migrant who came to Tasmania and worked for the Hydro. He was the first to climb Federation Peak solo in the 1950s and was the first to kayak the Gordon River through the Gordon Splits all the way from Lake Pedder to Strahan.
It was his relentless campaigning to save Lake Pedder that made him a household name in the early 1970s. At that time, his colour slide show that he put together of prints of Pedder, which phased in and out to the music of Sibelius, was revolutionary. I am pleased to see this set up on display and screening at QVMAG. To accompany the exhibition is a publication of the same name. This is the first book of Olegas’s collective work since Max Angus and other artists compiled and printed The World of an Olegas Truchanas in 1975. That work came after Olegas’s tragic death on the Gordon River just months before Lake Pedder’s flooding. It provides a perpetual legacy of Olegas’s work, that being photographing Tasmania’s wild places and calling for their protection.
Olegas had come from war-torn Europe and he had seen the destruction caused elsewhere. In Tasmania he found a place of final wildness which could not be found anywhere else on the planet. And so came his famous call to action: that if we can accept that man and nature are inseparable parts of the unified whole, then Tasmania can be a shining beacon in a dull, uniform and largely artificial world.
QVMAG is the proud and absolutely rightful custodian of Olegas’s work. They describe the exhibition as ‘motivated by a love of nature and natural beauty’. Olegas Truchanas’s legacy is told here with carefully selected images to celebrate his birth just over 100 years ago. Through the lens of his camera, This Vanishing World shares the journey of Olegas Truchanas and his campaign to expand awareness of Tasmania’s unique and endangered south west in the 1950s to 1970s, which helped inspire an ongoing environment protection movement.
However, this exhibition is not exclusively a celebration of Olegas’s work but a life of devotion from the entire Truchanas family. Olegas’s wife, Melva Truchanas, was an early explorer and bushwalker who ventured into many remote locations across Tasmania, as Olegas did, but she was not quite the household name he was. She even walked 8000 km along the length of New Zealand. That was in the 1950s, well before tramping was as popular or straightforward as it is today. Her life’s work in preserving and sharing Olegas’s photography came when she was not advocating for conservation, social justice and endlessly supporting others in doing so. Because of Melva’s work, this exhibition was made possible. Olegas’s work will continue to inspire a new generation to advocate for and adore Tasmania’s wild places. That continuity of impact Olegas’s work is by far the biggest testament of his success.
Today, the Truchanas children, Anita, Nick and Rima, are also carrying the torch after we lost Melva in 2022. Rima wrote the foreword for the new book accompanying this exhibition. She said, on behalf of the Truchanas family:
We hope this exhibition of Olegas’s creative work will continue to nourish and inspire all generations of activists and strengthen our collective conviction to take action on peaceful coexistence and protection of this planet in the UN decade of ecosystem restoration.
She is quite an inspiring wordsmith, not unlike her father.
Amid the climate and biodiversity crisis, it is extraordinary to see these Truchanas children, who grew up on Pedder’s magnificent pink quartzite beach under the Frankland Range, who bore the emotional toll of seeing this place lost the same year Olegas died, today advocating for this wilderness gem to be restored.
This Vanishing World: Photography of Olegas Truchanas is exhibiting at QVMAG’s Inveresk precinct until February 2025, so everyone has plenty of time to get in and see it. Best of all, this stunning immersive display has free entry.
Finally, I will speak briefly about another sensational Tasmanian talent who solicits their own adjournment speech. That is Amy Sherwin, the Tasmanian nightingale. She was from Judbury in the Huon Valley. Amy was a world‑class opera singer. By happenstance, her voice, her gift was recognised while she was singing in a farm shed in Cygnet in the 1870s. From that moment Amy was destined for the world stage.
This evening at the Hobart Town Hall, there was, or they are possibly still kicking on at the moment, the recently formed Amy Sherwin Fund Committee, who are hosting a fundraiser with the intention of paying for a commissioned marble statue of Amy. The fund is working towards the unveiling of that statue in September 2025, which will be the 90th anniversary of her death.
This move to perpetuate Amy’s legacy, which all Tasmanians should be proud of, is being championed by the likes of former governor Kate Warner, and, of all people, former Greens leader, Bob Brown.
While I could not make it to this evening’s event, I extend my support and enthusiasm for the project and encourage all members to assist where they can.
