Beginning in 2019 and lasting into early this year, a series of bushfires across Australia, focused heavily in the state of New South Wales, did unprecedented damage to the many parts of the country and some of its surrounding areas. While the crisis received some media attention as it was happening, discussion of the continuing effects of the bushfires after they were quelled has been almoꦉst entirely nil, at least outside of Australia (of course, one contributing factor is the worldwide crisis that has dominated the media since then).

Photographer and 3D modeler Jason De Fr𒉰eitas, however, has not forgotten about the bushfires. On his Reddit account, life_is_a_conspiracy, De Freitas  to the "Gaming" subreddit details about a virtual art gallery he created, from which proceeds made will be donated to brushfire relief efforts.

The gallery is located in Minecraft, and the server details for all those who want to view the gallery themselves are available publicly . It includes a series of photographs he sho𝓀t of the regrowth of trees affected by the fire on Kodak Aerochrome, which is a now-expensive film that takes infrared photos. The film gives its subjects a distinct reddened look. He also features work by photographers Robert Walwyn and Kristelle De Freitas.

He explains in a below the Reddit post that the impetus for the project was his own realization that those still affected by the fire have been largely forgotten. Some of the 3,500 who lost their homes, he notes, are still living in trailer parks. Since exhibiting photographs in a public art gallery for this same purpose is infeasible and dangerous due to the ongoing pandemic, De Freitas decided that he would do the next best thing and make them all available to peruse in Minecraft.

Prints of all of his photographs featured in the gallery are available through his personal web♛site, and the proceeds from those will be donated to the South Coast Donation Logistics Team, which is a charity organization coordinating relief efforts to those impacted by the brushfires. Full details about the art gallery and a link to purchase prints are all available on De Freitas' .

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