Julie Gibson delivering the launch speech for the KSCA exhibition at Manly Art Gallery & Museum.
We invited Julie Gibson from Capertee Valley Landcare to launch our exhibition at Manly Art Gallery & Museum. Julie is a legend in community-led conservation and environmental justice, and we have enjoyed working with her over the years on various events in the Valley. She’s not “in the artworld”, so we figured she would provide an excellent bridge between the work we do, as artists, and what’s going on out there in regional NSW. Sure enough, she gave a cracker of a speech! And Julie has kindly agreed for us to reprint it here for posterity.
JULIE GIBSON’S LAUNCH SPEECH, 10 April, 2026
Hello and good evening everyone.
Welcome to The Art of Adaptation.
Thank you KSCA for asking me to open this exhibition. I’ve enjoyed myself revisiting that time that we worked together on just one project.
In 2019 the Capertee Valley had been in drought for over 3 years, the river was dry, we were pretty stressed, then just before Xmas the fires came, then flooding rains. We were just getting ourselves together and Covid came.
Somehow, through all of that we, the local Landcare group, were putting together our project with KSCA, which we called “Resilient Farmers”. Looking back over that time I’m enormously impressed with what we achieved - so many fabulous events.
We had been learning about Natural Sequence Farming and how it makes use of the land itself to hold water. The way it was before settlement and European farming practices destroyed the swamps and removed the trees and changed the water flow.
Natural Sequence Farming works best if everyone does it, not just one farm: water doesn’t follow subdivision lines.
But how to share the message? How to start a process of change across the whole valley? To change the way everyone cared for their land and carried out their farming?
We had to get everyone to pay attention. To consider different ways of doing things.
By joining up with KSCA we tapped into many creative people and their ideas.
Local people, whose eyes would have glazed over if I had tried to talk about Natural Sequence Farming, turned up to events that were fun and engaging. They managed to absorb information and develop a new understanding about water and their land and their valley.
At our outdoor screening of the movie 2040 to launch the project, the lights along the creek were not only beautiful, but gave us the shape of the creek, and the land form around us. The lights connected us with the land while we talked with experts from the Mulloon Institute.
People made huge efforts to collect sticks and plants for Leanne Thompson’s weaving and came along to help put it all together.
At the Land Studio we camped and ate together and shat together while we got the weaving started and worked on creating a pin weir.
Unexpected Capertee Valley residents turned up to Imogen Semmler’s games and added their own experiences while they gained new insights.
We held active workshops about the valley hydrology and Natural Sequence Farming.
Georgie Pollard went to every event while her picture was gestating. It now hangs at our only café in the valley and is a focus of conversations. Kerrie Cooke, who was the landcare project manager for all this, and runs the café, is there to explain its richness and depth.
Peter Swain led us in celebrating the river. We started at dawn with local indigenous people at the place where it emerged from the hills. Then we followed it as it moved and twisted around the valley, on its way to becoming the Colo and thence the Hawkesbury. Making its link to the Northern Beaches and maybe explaining why so many people from the beaches have ended up in the valley. Peter has a special ability to include everyone fully in his ceremonies and share his Aboriginal cultural understanding.
At the end of the river day, after the tree carving, we all camped together with music and food.
An amazing end to an amazing year.
As Emma Goldman said “A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having”.
Take your time exploring the exhibition and know that everything you see will have a big story. Don’t hesitate to ask questions of the artists.
Thank you for coming and enjoy!!
LINKS:
The only café in the valley: From The Paddock https://www.facebook.com/fromthepaddock
Capertee Valley Landcare: https://www.facebook.com/CVLandcare
