It was my privilege, recently, to participate in an Extinction Rebellion action at Tamarama Beach during Sculpture by the Sea. It was a peaceful, visually arresting protest, aimed at keeping the urgency of climate action present in people’s minds, and offering ways to get involved in the battle to preserve our biosphere.
Picture a sunny Sunday afternoon, the cliff walk and promenades teeming with people. Tamarama is a dramatic beach – almost an equilateral triangle of sand, with a broad promenade and grassy flat areas behind, enclosed on both sides by sandstone cliffs that drop down towards the back where the road curves around the park. The cliff walk comes south around the headland from Bondi and descends to the beach via a series of ramps and stairs.
Along the promenade at the foot of the southern cliff-face, big horizontal banners were unfurled, lengthwise to the winds. CODE RED 4 HUMANITY in great white block letters on a red ground, almost as tall as the people holding it and a dozen metres wide; and beside it the very direct and practical NO NEW FOSSIL FUEL PROJECTS in white on blue. Against the shadowy rock face, above the pale sands and framed by a frothy turquoise sea and the massed greens of the parkland, the message was food for thought. But a feast for the eyes was yet to come.
Down a zigzag of ramps and stairs from Pacific Avenue came a line of extraordinary figures. Eleven people robed head to foot in brilliant red, faces painted white like mimes or medieval actors, their heads wreathed in red flowers. Gazes distant, they moved with funerary slowness, gloved hands a little lifted, palms up, streamers flying from their wrists. Milling crowds fell to a standstill as the mysterious figures passed, phones were lifted, people exclaimed and pointed.
The Red Rebels had come to Tamarama.
Because the origins of global environmental protest organisation Extinction Rebellion are in the UK, the group’s performance art division draws deeply on the visual language of Old English political street theatre. It looks astonishing on an Australian beach. Some people might take the Red Rebels for the main act, but in fact they’re there to hold space for the message or protest action, to frame and focus it for public attention.
As the Rebels crossed the beach, members of grassroots Newcastle group Rising Tide circulated amongst the crowd, answering questions, offering flyers. As the Rebels passed through the crowd, unobtrusive guards ensured they were never impeded. A whole team of people are needed to run a fleeting but memorable action like this one. None of us, of course, are paid to do this. It’s an act of love and rage.
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Red Rebel Brigade Sydney is always welcoming new members; if you’d like to get involved in this or related climate protest work, email xrartwgsydney@protonmail.com or reach out via the Extinction Rebellion Sydney Facebook page.
