Melissa McCord - Hands that Rock My Country

Melissa McCord was born and brought up on a cattle station in outback Queensland. She is a talented and prolific writer and photographer. Her latest project, Hands that Rock My Country, will be shown at STILLS Gallery as part of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival. In creating this work McCord returned to the bush in order to meet and photograph people living in the area she knew as a child. The resulting images evoke the personality of the subjects and describe their intimate relationship with the land. They highlight the humour and spirit that sustains individuals in outback Australia.

Melissa McCord's continuing documentation of the people and stories of outback Australia in Hands that Rock My Country is an important contribution to the cultural component of the Olympic experience as it acknowledges people from the bush to an international audience. This work draws attention to the social and environmental challenges facing both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who live in Australia's vast outback and celebrates our diverse contemporary rural culture.

Melissa will be donating all signed first edition prints from the exhibition to ReachOut!, the award winning and highly successful net-based service that helps young people get through tough times (http://www.reachout.com.au). These prints will be sold in order to raise funds for ReachOut!