Blackall uses photography and heritage to revive its small-town identity

A social media campaign launched by two Blackall photographers has helped reshape the Queensland town’s image after years of drought and empty shopfronts. The project is part of wider efforts, including heritage restoration and cultural investment, that consultants say could help small communities attract visitors and residents.

When drought and financial hardship left shops empty in Blackall in western Queensland, graziers Sarah Pearson and Lisa Alexander looked for a way to give the town a stronger public identity. In 2016, they created the #BetterInBlackall social media campaign, inviting residents to photograph the region and share images celebrating their community.

The photographs were used to cover vacant shop windows and later appeared on signs around the town. Pearson said the idea produced an “incredible” flow-on effect over the following decade, helping prompt a revamp of Blackall’s annual festival and providing the basis for welcome signs at the town’s entrances.

The campaign was presented as an example during the National Small Town Reinvention Conference, which brought 80 delegates from around Australia on a tour of eight towns in Queensland’s central west. Community consultant Peter Kenyon said first impressions, including town entrances, main streets and shopfront displays, were important to communities seeking to reinvent themselves.

Kenyon estimated that 70 per cent of small towns were dying but said towns in outback Queensland had bucked that trend. He argued communities should look at themselves with “fresh eyes” and use distinctive, humorous or unusual features to build places where residents wanted to stay and where young people might eventually return.

Other projects highlighted during the tour included Isisford’s Big Yellowbelly sculpture, made from local scrap materials. Ben Forbes, chief executive of Western Australia’s Yilgarn Shire Council, said the sculpture showed how a town could unite around a shared identity as his own community dealt with a downturn in the wheat belt.

Blackall-Tambo Regional Council has also supported physical improvements through a Shopfront Renewal Program, which generated $315,000 in co-funded investment for landscaping, signage and painting. Councillor Boyd Johnstone said grassroots support was essential. He and his partner converted the former Blackall Masonic Lodge into a cafe, gallery and antique store, while a separate $21 million Blackall Cultural Precinct is being developed with federal, council and Red Ridge Interior funding. The town has also restored the Blackall Historical Woolscour and launched the Outback Circus Carnival.