Thursday, 20 February 2025

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (09:59): Last week I had the privilege of attending a preview event at the new Goldstone Gallery in Collingwood. The This Is Navalny exhibition from exiled Russian photojournalist Evgeny Feldman is a powerful display of courage and resistance in the face of oppression and danger. Feldman spent more than a decade following Russian anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny, from campaigning in the streets to his arrest and detention in Russia. Opening a year after Navalny’s death in a Siberian jail, the photographs in the exhibition present a confronting picture of political oppression and what courage looks like. For me the most powerful image was of Navalny moments after being attacked by an unknown assailant and sprayed in the face with a thick green substance, a caustic antiseptic, staring at his own alien reflection in the mirror, trying to comprehend the horror and danger that had just befallen him – a visual reminder that acts of political violence that are designed to silence are ones that ask us as politicians deep questions about belief and courage. The Goldstone Gallery, newly opened by philanthropists Diane and Dan Mossenson, is a contemporary art space whose mission is to give voice to the silent, particularly to Jewish artists. It is named after Lance Sergeant Aaron Goldstone, a Jewish Australian whose parents ran the first business, a grocery, on the gallery site in Collingwood and who fought and died in World War I. The gallery is just a stone’s throw from the Parliament, and I encourage all members to head down and take a look at this powerful exhibition.