Deadly Sports Heroes by Barbara McGrady
Gamilaroi/Gomeroi Murri Yinah photographer Barbara McGrady is unique as an indigenous accredited NRL/AFL on-field sports photographer. This exhibition celebrates sports heroes she has photographed over the years.
Her images capture the passion and achievements of contemporary Australian sports history. Australia has always made its name and fame as a sporting nation. First Nations sportsmen and women have played a central part in this achievement. They have embraced and excelled across all fields of sport, as this exhibition will show.
Barbara McGrady is ‘more than’ a sports photographer. She sees the world ‘through a black lens’ having committed her life to recording the contemporary history of First Nations people, telling the story entirely from an indigenous point of view. From an early age living in Mungindi, northern NSW, she inherited a passion for football from her father and was inspired by international photography publications and projects of the forties and fifties she recognised the power of photography to tell positive stories. It was the birth of photojournalism.
As well as achieving her goal of becoming an accredited photojournalist in sport (the first Aboriginal woman to do that), she has documented Aboriginal community, in particular her local inner city community in Glebe, followed through the lens of every important protest action for Aboriginal rights and made portraits of every First Nations person of note within the world of politics and arts. She has achieved this focus both through commissions for Aboriginal organisations and through the name she has made as a uniquely positioned documenter of Aboriginal stories.
Deadly Sports Heroes is directed specifically to First Nations youth in the inner city. Positive achievers and role models in sport over recent times are displayed large scale on the walls of Peter Forsythe Sports Stadium (the back of Broadway Shopping Centre) facing Glebe Point Road near Badde Manners Café.
This event is supported by City of Sydney and Create NSW.