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If you walked past Blossom Taw in the streets of Melbourne’s western suburbs, you wouldn’t know her past struggles.
But as a teenager in Myanmar, and a member of the Karen ethnic group, Taw protested and fought for years against the military junta.
A portrait of Blossom Taw features in David Mullins’ book Faces of Wyndham.Credit: David Mullins
Taw was imprisoned, poisoned and tortured in her home country by the regime, and friends and relatives were killed and maimed. While living in Thailand after she left her home country, she was again jailed for protesting. She arrived in Australia as a refugee in 2008.
Now a single mother of seven children living in Tarneit, Taw is among 128 residents of the City of Wyndham who feature in the Faces of Wyndham project – a self-funded labour of love of Point Cook photographer David Mullins.
What started as portraits posted on his Facebook page aiming to portray the area’s extraordinary cultural diversity, slowly grew. Over time, stories of resilience and community service emerged and now, Mullins is hosting an exhibition and releasing a book of his work.
One interviewee, Asunta Agot Majur, fled South Sudan with relatives when she was five and lived as a refugee in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya before coming to Australia in 2004.
Photographer David Mullins takes portraits of locals for his Faces of Wyndham Facebook page.Credit: Wayne Taylor
“Her first impression of Australia was that she had arrived in heaven,” Mullins said. “The promised land of honey and milk, as the Bible quotes it. The land without starvation and homelessness.”
Another subject, Patrick Preston, was born during a Nazi air raid on London during World War II. During his photo session, he told Mullins how, as a crane driver in 1970, he watched the West Gate Bridge fall and kill a number of his workmates – an experience that sparked a lifelong effort to improve safety conditions for construction workers.
Mullins said his happiest interviewee was Nelzita Nascimento, an indigenous Tupi-Guarani woman from Brazil, who at age eight was sent away from home to work for food and shelter.
From South Sudan, Asunta Agot Majur was a refugee in three countries before she came to Australia.Credit: David Mullins
Later in life, Nascimento migrated to Australia to join her son.
Mullins said of photographing her in his studio: “Considering the background she’s had, she radiated happiness, she was smiling the whole time she was here.”
The book’s cover depicts Gary Harding, who Mullins said made for a powerful portrait with his facial tattoos and traditional clothing that express Harding’s Maori identity.
Mullins, who migrated at age 18 with his family from England in 1989, said he learnt that despite surface differences, his subjects shared certain goals. “We all want health, safety, love and security.”
The cover of Mullins’ Faces of Wyndham book features Gary Harding expressing his Maori heritage.Credit: David Mullins
Mullins vowed to continue Faces of Wyndham, and said he might expand the project to other parts of Melbourne.
“I meet so many fantastic people,” he said.
“I’m going to do one profile a week, indefinitely, until I am not able to do it.”
The free Faces of Wyndham exhibition will be at the Creative Asia Art Centre at the World Trade Centre in Docklands from February 19 to March 3, with the opening on February 21 at 2pm.
Mullins’ book can be bought at the exhibition, or ordered on the Faces of Wyndham Facebook page.
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