Joe Colbrook, Olegas Truchanas’ work will be displayed at QVMAG in 2024, The Examiner, 24 September 2023
The life and legacy of one of Tasmania’s most ardent conservationists and prolific nature photographers will be commemorated next year.
Olegas Truchanas’ photography will be displayed at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in 2024, in an exhibition titled Vanishing World.
Friday, September 22 would have been Truchanas’ 100th birthday, and QVMAG’s history senior curator Jon Addison said the Lithuanian-born photographer was a pioneer.
Truchanas was the first person to navigate from Lake Pedder to Macquarie Harbour, and his work influenced future generations of politicians, activists and artists.
“He just basically fell in love with the landscape of Tasmania,” Mr Addison said.
“It’s amazing how many people at that time hadn’t.
“It took an immigrant to come in and say, ‘wow, this is truly something special’ to really make the locals sit up and notice.”
Truchanas was a key figure in the unsuccessful campaign against the flooding of Lake Pedder, which in turn influenced the campaign against the Gordon-below-Franklin Dam.
Mr Addison said the exhibition would feature several iconic images and slides from Truchanas’ personal collection, donated by his family.
Daughter Rima Truchanas said her father’s spirit lived on, decades after his death in 1972.
“Dad’s work strengthened resolve in emerging artists and activists, to give expression to the unique landscapes of Tasmania in the campaigns to preserve and protect diminishing wild places,” she said.
