Kurilpa Derby 2011
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Kurilpa Derby 2011

Chris Harvey
Low and leaning into the corner, helmet on, completely focused. The roller derby skater in full flight is one of the more kinetic subjects in street photography.

01 / 05

Red hat, plant in the brim, laughing at something off camera. The Kurilpa Derby is the kind of event where this is an unremarkable person to encounter.

02 / 05

Samba dancers coming up Boundary Street, white feathers above the crowd, the heritage shopfronts behind them. West End contains multitudes.

03 / 05

White Victorian blouse, black bow, hands clasped, genuinely delighted by something. This is what West End looks like from the inside.

04 / 05

A drummer in the middle of the procession, djembes in a row, the street blocked by sound. The event has its own rhythm.

05 / 05

From the Author

The Kurilpa Derby is a West End institution. Once a year Boundary Street closes to traffic, the roller derby track goes down on the asphalt, and the neighbourhood puts on the kind of event that couldn’t happen anywhere else in Brisbane — too specific, too eccentric, too much itself.

I have photographed it several times. What I keep returning to is the way the event layers different visual registers on top of each other: the athletic intensity of the roller derby, the spectacle of the samba dancers, the casual costuming of the crowd, the architecture of the heritage shopfronts. All of it in one street, in one afternoon.

On the derby itself: Roller derby photography is technically demanding. The skaters are fast, the action changes direction quickly, and the street setting means your background is constantly in motion too. I use a fast shutter speed and accept that some images will be soft, focusing instead on catching the moments of contact and competition — the lean into a corner, the jostling between skaters — rather than trying to freeze every run.

On the crowd as subject: At the Kurilpa Derby the crowd is as photogenic as the performers. The event attracts the West End community in full expression — costumes, bicycles with decorations, children in elaborate hats, elderly people watching from fold-out chairs. The man in the red hat with the plant growing out of the brim was standing near the barrier doing nothing in particular. I made his portrait because it seemed to capture something essential about the day.

On the side events: The roller derby is the centrepiece but the surrounding programme — the drummers, the samba troupe, the food stalls — runs continuously. Moving through the event rather than staying at one point gives you access to all of it, though it means you miss some of the main action.

The Kurilpa Derby is the event I most associate with West End’s character. It is made by the community for the community and it shows.

More Kurilpa Derby coverage: Kurilpa Derby 2012 · Kurilpa Derby 2013 · Kurilpa Derby 2015

Chris Harvey