A snapshot of life inside Greenway Social Housing
Sydney-based photographer Christopher Ireland’s All Things Considered project began when he walked past a church by the bridge in Kirribilli in 2009 and noticed a sign for an art prize.
It prompted him to ask a local if they knew of any really interesting or older people in the area who might like to be photographed. Chris recalls: “They pointed up to the top of Greenway and said, ‘There’s a man on the 10th floor called Albert Morgan.’ They took me up 10 flights of stairs, I met Albert and photographed him.”
That same day, on the way down the stairs from Albert’s flat, Chris met a woman named Vera, who saw his camera and asked him to take her portrait.
Chris started to wonder who else might like a photo. “I went back with a camping chair and sat out the front of A Block with a handwritten sign saying, ‘free photos, no catch,’” Chris recalls. “By the end of the first day, I had three people brave enough. When I brought back their beautiful black and white prints the following day, they really liked them.”
The photo Chris took of Albert later won the art prize.
Chris was intrigued by the diversity and the interesting range of people living at the Greenway social housing complex, which opened in 1954. “I had never realised the extent to which people hide their true selves and are inauthentic until I’d met the people at Greenway,” Chris says. “They are so forthright about talking about their life experience. Once you hear their stories, you start to understand why we have social housing and how some people have greater needs, especially around mental health.”
By the end of the first week, Chris had photographed 20 people. Fourteen years later, he had 138 images, more than 15,000 stills frames and over 25 interviews. He held an exhibition at Greenway’s community centre in 2024 for the 70th anniversary. Recently his work was exhibited at the Sydney Contemporary art fair at Carriageworks where he sold catalogues of his images, raising $5,000 for Greenway. He has 12 images in the State Library collection.
Chris says there’s a really strong sense of community among the 370 or so Greenway residents. “These are people who have prevailed throughout struggle,” says Chris. “But they’ve got each other’s back and they’re a very tight-knit community.”
Greenway has English classes, cooking classes and Tai Chi, a community bus for outings, a Men’s Shed, vegetable garden and rose garden.
“It’s a bloody good example of how to run a community,” says Chris, who is looking for financial backing to publish a book of his collection and raise money for Greenway. For more information, visit christopherirelandcreative.com