A Woman, A Place, A Story: Who is Gert?

In 1924, near Queenstown on the west coast of Lutruwita/Tasmania, a young man holds a double-barrelled gun with a black cockatoo perched on the barrel.
A young woman with short curly hair stands beside him in the button grass, a dead black cockatoo dangling from each hand.

Captivated by this iconic photograph in the Queenstown Galley Museum, poet and performer Jacqui Malins wanted to learn more.
She began a process of archival research, family interviews and environmental immersion. The result is GERT: a non-fiction narrative collection of poetry and images which tells two inseparable stories: one of a place, and the other of one woman who lived there.
GERT sets the life of Gert Bradshaw, nee Brown within the deep history, arresting landscape, vibrant community and boom-and-bust rhythms of the west coast, where many of her descendants still live.
This is a world of rivers and rainforest, loggers and miners, smelters and dams. GERT brings forward one of the many untold stories of the women who lived in this environment.

At this event, Jacqui will perform spoken word and readings from GERT, and talk about her processes of research and creative inquiry.

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