JUSTICE FOR VIOLET AND BRUCE,

WAGGA WAGGA ART GALLERY, NEW MEDIA PROJECT LAB, June 3rd - July 17th, 2022

Curator, Julie Ewington

This project focusses on a group of archival photographs taken in 1980 and recently rediscovered. In the more than 40 years since the images were made, time itself has developed the pictures and now they seem current again.

In 1976 Violet and Bruce Roberts were convicted of the murder of Eric Roberts, Violet’s husband and Bruce’s father, at Pacific Palms near Taree in regional New South Wales, after enduring years of domestic violence. The trial was short and relatively cursory but by 1980 the public outcry against the injustice of their imprisonment was spearheaded by a courageous Sydney activist group Women Behind Bars. Violet and Bruce’s release from jail on 15 October 1980 turned on the recognition of the defence of provocation in cases of murder where there had been long-term domestic violence and it led to changes in the New South Wales Crimes Act.

I photographed many of the public events staged by Women Behind Bars between May and October 1980 drawing attention to the Roberts case and the exhibition included a selection of these as well as large-scale proof sheets of the material. The campaign included vigils, marching through the streets of Sydney carrying a continuous scroll with thousands of signatures petitioning Parliament for their release and a presence in Macquarie Street outside Parliament House. Someone paid for a plane to write ‘Free Violet and Bruce in the sky at the time the case was mentioned in Parliament. Several times, arrests were made of the protesters - an opportunity for the women to meet with women prisoners in gaol. The endlessly creative and performative events that were staged on the streets of Sydney at the time demonstrated that protest is a creative act, and a part of the history of performance art as well as the history of social justice.

See: Ashleigh Adams, Art Monthly, July 14th, 2022