Green and white umbrella inscribed 'JAM the PLAN!', Griffith, 14 October 2010
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- Type
- Umbrellas
- Place
- Griffith, New South Wales, Australia
- Materials
- Ink, Metal - non specific, Plastic, Polyester - non specific, Velcro, Wood
- Collection
- Griffith Business Chamber collection
- Accession number
- 2012.0026.0002
Description
A green and white striped golf umbrella with a wooden handle and metal stem and tip. In the green panel, the handwritten text reads '8000 JOBS / DOWN THE / DRAIN!'. The number '8000' is underlined in black ink. In the white panel, the handwritten text reads 'JAM / the / PLAN!'. The word 'the' is handwritten in red ink.
About the collection
The Griffith Business Chamber collection comprises four large umbrellas inscribed with protest messages in black and red ink. Murray-Darling Basin Authority officers collected the umbrellas at a water reform meeting in Griffith, southern NSW, in October 2010. The umbrellas are in good condition. The Murray-Darling Basin is Australia's most significant agricultural region. It contains 65 per cent of the nation's irrigated agricultural land. Intensification of irrigation development and industrial farming in the 20th century brought profound changes to Basin river systems. Concerted efforts to address river health at an intergovernmental level began in the 1980s. The Griffith Business Chamber collection records understandings of irrigation community members about the nature of rural/urban relationships. Many of the community meetings held by the Authority between 2010 and 2012 were heated spectacles that generated much media coverage. The inscribed umbrellas reveal strategies of the Griffith Business Chamber to influence urban voters and reorient the reform agenda. These protest items can be understood as active within complex decision-making processes, with capacities to shape the realities of lives and places.
Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 6:20:27 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2025-02-17. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.