Our Pet Woodpecker

• Photographer
  Karen Lunney, Australia
• Studio
  Cindual Pty Ltd

Throughout the world, social fabrics distort in response to
demands or actions from distant countries. Children must adapt to
evolving conditions, new constraints and unforeseen
opportunities. The grandparents of Waorani girls had rarely met
outsiders but their rainforest surroundings in East Ecuador will be
affected by Chinese-facilitated oil exploitation within the next few
years. When we visited the Waorani homelands these little girls
had saved a baby woodpecker from certain death in the forest.
They had made a comfortable home and we couldn't help
contrasting their compassion with the lack of agreement by the
world on the Ecuadorian Government proposed Yasuni-ITT which
may have saved their homeland and which was scrapped soon
after we left these generous people.

Karen Lunney is a contemporary photographic artist working out of Brisbane and North Stradbroke Island, Queensland, Australia. Her work investigates the liminal space - a state of transition, a place of possibility, where one thing has ceased and another not yet started. All levels of existence share in this phenomenon. The light of dawn and dusk, the ocean-land interface and the migration of animals all represent forms of liminality. The cultural transitions of peoples forced to westernise, not sure what culture to save into their new modernity and the climatic changes causing paroxysms around the globe both produce uncertainties for the future with consequences for many.

Awards 2014 IPA Nature Photographer of the Year
2014 IPA Wildlife Photographer of the Year
4th Documentary section 2013 International Loupe Awards
4th Wildlife section 2014 International Loupe Awards
Finalist 2014 Smithsonian Photography Competition
Finalist 2014 Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Finalist 2014 HIPA Dubai