Walking Together’ is told from an unusual perspective—feet! Feet of all ages and various lifestyles traverse Australia reflecting this extract from the Uluru Statement from the Heart: ‘We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future . . .’
‘Walking Together’ is a symbolic call to Australians one and all to join together, communicate, understand, and walk together figuratively and symbolically. Using rhyming couplets each four-line verse beseeches young and old to come together into the future. There is no specific destination, no specific individual no particular cultural group. Rather the invitation is for one and all. The purposeful lack of specific detail as to where those walking together are going encourages discussion about what might be the aim of ‘walking together.’
The text is minimal offering time to consider possible meanings. These are amplified by Dub Leffler’s softly coloured and lightly brushed artwork featuring watercolour paint and pencils, coffee, and salt.
A close look at the feet suggests a deeper interpretation. There are bare feet, shackled feet, soldier’s feet, two pair of confrontational feet suggesting disagreement, some bare feet, others in different types of shoes. The text features an Australian map with both well-known and little-known places as feet walk together.
The soft gold and grey endpapers subtly suggest rebirth with dung beetles circling a tiny green shot. A dung beetle appears in most illustrations usually toiling away on a mound of dirt, seemingly investigating the landscape with an occasional green shoot appearing. The concluding text askes, ‘Will you join us? Will you come?’
Dub Leffler is a descendent from the Bigambul people of South-West Queensland. His books have won numerous awards. His artwork is held in private & public collections around the world including The Library of Congress in Washington, DC.