Fine Photography Exhibition,19th November – 1st December, Bondi Pavilion Gallery.
All profits raised will be donated in support of Where Pigs Fly Farm Sanctuary.
Australian photographer, Gary Sheppard with over 30 years of photographic experience and winner of numerous awards for his work, has created a wonderfully emotive series of portraits of farmed animals from Where Pigs Fly Farm Sanctuary. His ambition was to put a face to these animals, showing the depth of their emotions and individual beauty, to challenge people’s perception and to create empathy and compassion.
“As a society we rarely think about the farmed animal we are consuming, how they lived and how they died” says Sheppard “This exhibition was my way of helping the sanctuary and a great cause.”
The animals he has chosen are residents of Where Pigs Fly Farm Sanctuary . A not-for-profit charity located in the Hunter Valley that takes in rescue animals that have suffered from severe abuse and neglect. The profits from this exhibition are being donated to the sanctuary to help with their ongoing rescue and outreach program.
Debbie and her partner Jamie started the sanctuary 5 years ago, leaving a corporate
city lifestyle in Sydney to find a place in the country where they could realize their lifelong ambition to rescue and rehabilitate abused animals.
“It’s important to use the sanctuary as a platform to educate and allow people to connect with the animals that we rescue, it lets people see the animals as friends not food” says Debbie a vegan herself for more than 20 years. “The best ambassadors have been the animals themselves.”
The sanctuary currently houses around 120 animals that have arrived through various methods from local agencies like the RSPCA to members of the general public reporting cases of neglect. “The magnitude of what we do and deal with is enormous and its incredibly expensive setting up the infrastructure as well as the ongoing cost for the care of the animals, but I love what I do” Says Debbie. “We rely 100% on the generosity of the people that support us as well as the amazing volunteers that help us”
The exhibitions timing couldn’t have come soon enough considering the bushfires that have been raging across both NSW and Queensland. The sanctuary is located very close to the Gospers fire in Wollemi National Park which is still burning today. All the animals have currently been evacuated to other properties in anticipation of more bad weather conditions to come.
You can help support the sanctuary by going to visit them on their open days or going to their website to donate, sponsor an animal or just to buy one of Garry’s beautiful pieces of artwork knowing that the money you help raise is going to a good cause.