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Since 2005 a community in Tasmania has been involved in one of Australia’s most fierce environmental controversies since the Franklin Dam, with plans to develop a pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. While the state and federal governments, mill owners, environmentalists and farmers battled, local residents found themselves living every day in the reality of a world where the natural environment, clean water and fresh air compete for value with money, power and jobs.

Butler has chosen to show images of the struggle as it is reflected in the faces of the community. Chosen from photographs of 450 people taken in the church halls, packing sheds and cool stores of the valley, the portraits personify the battle. In their faces the Tamar Valley becomes both less and more. It becomes a place we are part of, its inhabitants diverse and familiar and in doing so it is no longer “other”. It is “we”. In these photographs the ordinary people of the Tamar Valley community are making a powerful, silent statement of strength in a world that is ostensibly beyond their control.