Prue Hazelgrove is a Canberra based artist specialising in the 19th Century wet plate photographic process known as collodion. The collodion process, one of the first in the history of photography, fixes images to glass and metal. By design, the collodion image is a reflection and not a copy. Hazelgrove has documented extensive series of people in their community, reflecting back personalities in splendid detail. Turning their attention to personally and locally significant places in the region, Hazelgrove presents Re:Generation.

When Prue Hazelgrove looks at the shape of a landscape, the hills, the rocks, the plants, the animals, the people, they often contemplate water. How it both shapes and sustains everything that exists there. The artist often conceives of words and people like water; flowing, gathering and changing. How they reflect, rearrange and resonate.

Prue Hazelgrove is the technical assistant supporting Brenda Croft’s Naabami (thou shall/will see): Barangaroo (army of me) project. Through the development of this work, Hazelgrove had the privilege and honour of meeting and listening to many First Nations elders and their families: hearing their stories, their wisdom, about their relationship with Country and family. This experience was like drawing near to the river. To witness the truth of how the place in which you exist is sustained, and changes with seasons, yet remains constant, to see the wisdom and sovereignty of Country and Custodians.

In confronting their own colonial heritage, Hazelgrove was inspired by the friendship of Onyong, a Ngunnuwal/Ngambri warrior/leader and Garret Cotter, an Irish convince. Their story of cultural exchange and kindness was an encouraging, albeit imperfect, contradiction to the classical colonial narrative of inevitable conflict, conquering and control. In revisiting and acknowledging ancestral imbalances, the ongoing journey of healing and regeneration is one in which all play a role.

To draw near to the river, the water, in whatever form it takes, to the source, is to be changed. You must be patient, be willing to let go of your sedimentary colonial beliefs, be worn down, to be shaped. You must be prepared to move, to follow the source, to learn. By existing alongside the truth telling, the words the people - the water, you will be undeniably changed. – Prue Hazelgrove