Plight of Tasmania’s Takayna Captured by 80 Artists 

Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 15 April 2024

Plight of Tasmania’s takayna captured by 80 artists

For the past ten years, Bob Brown Foundation has hosted artists in Tasmania’s threatened takayna / Tarkine and over the weekend, 80 artists took part in one of Australia’s biggest environmental arts projects.

Bob Brown Foundation’s annual Art for takayna event celebrates the vast remote region of wild forests, including Australia’s largest tract of temperate rainforest and the National Heritage-listed Aboriginal cultural landscape coastline.

“Artists capture the beauty of this threatened place and provide a unique opportunity for our campaign to defend and protect one of the last great wild places left on Earth,” Bob Brown Foundation Campaign Manager Jenny Weber said.

“Despite consistent calls for World Heritage listing for takayna, the Tasmanian and Australian governments are failing to give the secure protection for this wild place which is urgently needed to stop the loss of its globally unique values,” said Jenny Weber.

Artists spent more than 72 hours exploring this remote part of north-west Tasmania, creating works aimed at gaining protection for takayna.

Over the weekend, a diverse group of international, interstate and Tasmanian artists spread out across takayna. Participants came from as far afield as Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and New York.  Artists were located on the remote coast at Rupert Point and in three rainforest camps threatened by logging and MMG’s proposed mine tailings dam.

Bob Brown Foundation is leading a campaign for secure protection of 450,000 hectares of takayna in a National Park, World Heritage listing and a return to Aboriginal ownership.