Shadows is a very personal view of difficult and painful subjects, which takes us through one man's journey of coming to an understanding of the darkness of the past in order to make sense of the present and with hope for a brighter future. Williams Yang combines his talent as a photographer with his singular and compassionate voice to give a performance that takes the form of a monologue with a backdrop of slides, accompanied by the haunting and lyrical music of Colin Offord. Yang addresses the plight of Australian Aboriginal people and the treatment of migrant Germans in South Australia, but also embraces all marginalised and minority groups who suffer under the twin demons of ignorance and racial intolerance. 
      The narrative gently reveals the story of a tribe of Aboriginal people an has all the ingredients of a tragedy, the pitiable history of the Colonial treatment of Australia's indigenous people is accompanied by a fear for the tenuous and fragile future of the characters who have become his friends. Yang's emotive photographs show the ignored and dispossessed of Australia and his engagement with them is moving and honest; the discovery of a massacre site is particularly poignant as two slides linger on the bones of a child's hand. Treatment of migrant Germans during the wars was equally shameful, they were interned, demonized, accused of baby-eating, their language banned, town names anglicised and it is clear that Australia is still coming to terms with its guilt. 
      Yang is, however, always generous to and non-judgemental of his subjects, in particular his recognition of contemporary Germany's struggle to come to terms with its past and attempts at reconciliation; he shows several slides of Daniel Liebeskind's beautiful memorial to the Holocaust in Germany which articulates through architectural form oppression and helplessness, together with areas for contemplation on the souls that did not survive. 
      The wide camera lens is drawn in to focus our attention on the psychological as well as physical barriers that divide and separate us all by showing photographs of the Berlin Wall, concentration camps and the perimeter fences erected around Aboriginal compounds. All these physical barriers have now been demolished, it is up to us to destroy the psychological ones and bridge the gulfs that harm both sides of the divide. Shadows is a calm and balanced odyssey through our chiaroscuro world, honestly told by a generous and open-hearted man, which is ultimately about confronting the truth of racial and cultural inequities.
Louise Page