MORDERN
Conservationist By Melissa Walsh
S
iri Hayes has quite the connection with the peninsula, growing up with parents who were environmental activists for Western Port in the 1970’s. These days, Hayes creates art work that incorporates both washed-up natural detritus and rubbish as well as work that comments on the impact of human activity on nature, which is part of the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery exhibition ‘In the Valley’.
“My parents, dad’s siblings and grandparents were involved in the conservation and environmental movement in the 1970s, particularly around protecting the peninsula and Western Port Bay from being rezoned as a heavy industrial zone. Amongst many ecologically destructive ideas proposed was to dredge the shallow mudflats of Western Port, with their delicate seagrasses and other natural flora and fauna, effectively killing the whole ecology of the
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area,” said Hayes, whose grandparents Ken and Meredith Hayes, alongside Jo Tilliard, Dr Bill Carol and Lorna Bennett, formed Westernport Peninsula Protection Council which is still active to this day. “My father, Robert Hayes, appeared on current affairs programs standing in the mangroves near Hastings talking about the way these plants, ‘the lungs of the bay’, would be destroyed if the destructive industrial plans were to go ahead. Both my grandparents went on to receive Orders of Australia for their services to conservation, primary industry and the environment.” As a child, the environmental artist was often immersed in the natural beauty of the Mornington Peninsula, particularly Western Port, but always with the backdrop of environmental activism and understanding how our actions can impact the world positively and negatively. continued next page...
February 2019