By Callum Ludwig
The keen eye of William Wall, the 14-year-old boy from Launching Place who went missing and was found dead in 2020, is being displayed in a photographic exhibition.
Curated from photographs discovered on his personal and school cameras, ‘My Vision’ opened at his grandmother’s gallery, Gold Street Studios in Trentham East, on 6 December and will be on display until 18 February.
William’s mum Teresa Wall said they had no idea he’d even taken so many photos.
“That was three years ago and at the time we thought about how nice it would be to share with everyone but it’s been too hard and too raw,” she said.
“They are amazing photos and I think because he was on the spectrum, he would capture everything in such h detail as well, even droplets of rain on a leaf, he managed to take a photo of.”
At 6.45am on 22 September 2020, William left home, telling his family that he was going for a run as he often did. When he didn’t return, a search effort involving police, SES, Bush Search and Rescue and local volunteers got underway. Just before 5pm on 23 September 2020, police confirmed that William’s body had been found in bushland at the back of a property in Yarra Junction. His death was not treated as suspicious and was later ruled as a suicide.
Ms Wall said Will had been having a rough time leading up to his death but not for a minute did they ever think he would take his own life.
“We’d been in and out of eating disorder clinics for about a year and it had been a total of six weeks in clinics,” she said.
“But we went for a walk the day before and he was telling me how he wanted to join the Air Force for a long time and talking about all the things he wants to do, so there’s not always signs,”
“I see a lot of the photographs, and I see a lot of Will and the way he was in them.”
All proceeds and sales from the exhibition will go towards The Compassionate Friends Victoria, an organisation dedicated to supporting grieving families in the event of the death of a child, and the Victorian Brotherhood, which is focused on male suicide awareness.
Ms Wall said it’s been hard on the whole family, but it’s a message that needs to be put out there.
“This is important for anyone, for the people that are experiencing depression and for the families and friends too,” she said.
“The people of the Yarra Valley were amazing, the support, the way they came together, and especially those couple of days when we were looking for him, they were amazing, be it the police or the general public,”
“There’s always support out there for anyone, for families and for kids and teenagers that are going through hard times.”
