Beta issue 02

02 DEC 2012

developments in photography

All content in this magazine is Š 2012 of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale and participating artists, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the BIFB. Inc save for fair dealing for the purposes of research, study, criticism, review, reporting news. All other rights are reserved.

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Contents

6 Jai-Yon Shim Tree

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32 Hoda Afshar In-Between Spaces

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42 Rod Schaffer

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60 Vikk Shayen Porcelain Wear

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72 Tony Kearney Closer

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88 Viviana Peretti Desperate Intentions

The finalist exhibition continues at Gallery Eleven40 1140 Malvern Road, Malvern North 3144 [03]8823 1140 www,eleven40.com.au

FRIDAY NOV 30th to FRIDAY DEC 21st

open monday to friday 9 - 5.30, weekends 11 - 4

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We all should have heroes. They inspire us to go forward and seek out our own photographic vision… or at least that’s what my heroes did for me. Salgado, Irving Penn, Sarah Moon, Jan Saudek, [you can imagine my joy when the possibility of including him in the core program at the 2011 Ballarat International Foto Biennale became a reality]

One of my earliest discoveries as a student at RMIT was the iconic American photo artist Duane Michals, so imagine my joy when Linda Benedict Jones, Curator of Photography at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg PA and one of my fellow reviewers at the Lens culture Portfolio Reviews in Paris earlier this month, asked me if I would like to attend a special preview screening of a new documentary on Michals, now in his 80th year. What’s more it was launching at a private club in Rue Montmartre owned and designed

by David Lynch.

There were three screenings scheduled in the 25 seat theatre, and Michals was to be only at the first showing to make a presentation and field questions from the audience. Unfortunately the first session was booked out when we applied for tickets, so we had to settle for the second screening at 10.30pm. I arrived early with our BIFB Paris based representative Christine Gates, and after passing muster with security, descended down into

the bowels of the earth into a maze of darkened tunnels and mirrors, populated by groups of terribly chic Parisiennes, dressed predominately in black – so very David Lynch!

We were a good thirty minutes early and couldn’t enter the theatre as the first screening was still in session, but were fortunate enough to be ushered in when Duane Michals started speaking and were allowed to stand up the back to listen. Michals is still fairly sprightly for his eighty years and his brief talk was peppered with self deprecating good humour.

He spoke and fielded questions from the audience for around 15 minutes before he made his way out of the theatre, and as he passed us interlopers standing at the back he reached out and gave my beard a gentle tug, and enquired with a good humoured smile ‘is that real?’…. ‘No it’s a wig’ came my response. And with that, one of my heroes disappeared into the maze of tunnels and mirrors and savoir faire that is Club Silencio. It is one

thing to have heroes, but it is an entirely another matter to have one of your heroes instigate a totally unexpected personal interaction.

So what does that have to do with this, the second edition of BETA developments in photography?... absolutely nothing, but it is a tale I expect I will tell many times into the future whenever I am in the company of my fellow lovers of the art and craft of photography.

Jeff Moorfoot Festival Director Ballarat International Foto Biennale

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Jai-Yon Shim Tree

Tree. I appreciate you showing me your bigness, teaching me the seasons, letting me relax and rely on your body, playing me wind sounds, and giving me fruits. You are devoted solely to giving the whole.

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Tree. I love you always being with me in between heaven and earth, in between high and low ones, and in between hot and cold ones. From a pencil to a pillar, you are always there beside me, and I am happy to be with you.

Tree. I acknowledge your beauty created by having harmonized yourself with all storms and by having removed droopy branches from yourself for a long time.

Because the truth is everything ought to be harmonized with others, you are beautiful.

My aim is to requite you with my photographs.

My photographs have been influenced by memories of my childhood through which I could learn the beauty of black-andwhite photography. A fabulous scene of sunrise lies in the memories. The sun rose over the dark shadow of an autumn mountain in my hometown.

The sun started shedding its beams on the ground in a misty morning like a projector in a movie theater. A curtain of lights passed through a forest of pine trees and dropped down close to the ground over vegetable farms, hidden in the shadow of the mountain. Woodmen walked along a path through the forest. Sometimes they walked in a group of two or three, and sometimes more than ten guys walked in a line. Their chats or humming sounds became echoes to spread over the moist forest.

I have pursued the memories of my childhood whenever I prepared a short trip for outdoor photography. It was mostly before dawn, and I enjoyed looking up at morning stars in the dark sky. I did not always decide what to photograph and where to visit for photography. But I always thought of the memories showing magnificent black-andwhite scenes before I knew it. I did before I knew it.

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Jai-Yon Shim has educated himself for photography since 1984. In 1988, he determined to become a professional freelance photographer in his early 30s.

Jai-Yon Shim’s photographic contemplations portray natural landscapes in South Korea. In addition, he commercially works with a large photo agency in South Korea, TOPIC Images. He has published two books, titled “Geumsu Gangsan” (published in 1992) and “Yoback” (published in 2010), describing the beauty of nature in South Korea. He has exhibited his photographs as an invited artist at 2012 Daegu Photo Biennale in Daegu and at art galleries in Seoul. Moreover, he has lectured on photography as a guest speaker at universities in South Korea.

Email: damjay@naver.com

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1140 malvern rd, malvern, vic 3144, malvern australia +61 3 8823 1140 info@eleven40.com.au

representing - roger arnall - robert besanko - neil duncan - glenn gibson - liam lynch - michael taylor - ric wallis

Lake Frome: plate 19 Š Ric Wallis

fine art printing gallery drum scanning studio hire equipment hire profoto phase one eVent space 31

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Hoda Afshar In-Between Spaces www.hodaafsharart.com

Migrants live ‘border lives’ on the margins of different nations, ‘inbetween’ contrary homelands. Living at the border, at the edge, requires a new ‘art of the present’. This depends upon embracing the contrary logic of the border and using it to rethink the dominant ways we represent history, identity and community Homi K Bhabha, The Location of Cultures, 1994

The In-Between Spaces is a series of photographs, illustrating social parodies based on performative masquerade. The images capture the juxtaposed nature of an identity, which is in transition between paradoxical spaces through migration. Created based on my personal encounters as a migrant in Australia, this series criticizes the current nationalistic fantasies that intend to enforce a standard image of what it means to be an Australian.

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It also depicts the migrant’s resistance to this application through emphasizing on their traditional costumes and habits. I believe what makes an individual immigrant suffer is the desire for familiar roots in a foreign land. While occupying existing cultural structures of the host community, they also attempt to maintain his/ her own locality. Living ‘in-between’ these opposing spaces alter how an individual conceives the concept of identity, home, border and culture.

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Hoda (b. 1983 Tehran, Iran. Lives: Melbourne, Australia) is currently a PhD candidate at the department of Art at Curtin University since 2010.

She finished a Bachelor degree in Fine Art – Photography at Azad University of Art and Architecture in Tehran and started her career as a documentary photographer for several years. She moved to Australia in 2007 and pursued her passion for art making by exploring various aspects of photography as well as other mediums such as sculpture and video. In 2010 she started a Masters in Fine Art at Curtin University and expanded her research into a PhD programme. She investigates the academic discourses around contemporary social issues including globalization, power relations, displacement and post-identity politics. She tests diaspora, exoticism and altermodern cosmopolitanism for political, artistic and uncanny imagemaking possibilities.

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www.rodschaffer.com

Rod Schaffer

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Born and educated in Melbourne.

Dropped out of the brave new world of Biotechnology in 1985 to study Photography at RMIT from 1986 -1988. Moved to Sydney in 1989. Initially assisted at the Mission, exhibiting a show on the beaches of Melbourne then worked out of several studios including Globe Studios before returning to Melbourne in late 94 to join Big Studio.

Married with two children.

Contributing to several group shows: Pyrmont A disappearing Industrial Landscape, Love, 10, Seeing Music, Motherhood etc.

Work has appeared in Communication Arts, AWARD, MADC, D&AD, Graphis , Archive, ACMP Collections.

Have spent several years developing two projects: Luna- A contemplation of the relationship we experience with our surroundings Rio de Janeiro & Salvador – Two great historical cities of Brazil.

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www.vikkshayen.com

Vikk Shayen Porcelain Wear

Porcelain was invented during the Han dynasty around 206 BC and has since be highly regarded for it’s delicacy, elegant symmetry, and intricate patterns in hues of blue.

These traits have also linked porcelain with femininity. Designer Cindy Wei Zhang kept that in mind when designing the collection and so befittingly should the images that document them.

I wanted to convey the sense of fragility and beauty of porcelain through a series of soft and light images. The collection had a series of visually strong structural shapes and it was imperative to find the symmetry and equally strong visual elements in the space to tie the collection to its surroundings. I also wanted to provide the ‘porcelain dolls’ some room for the ‘human element’ and not just objectifying them as porcelain objects on display. It’s a bit like wondering what your porcelain dolls do when you are not at home.

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Vikk is a Melbourne photographer who frequently photographs fashion and the performance arts with a view to expand further into advertising and commercial photography. Her work has been published in some magazines and newspapers both internationally and in Australia.

Although starting out in black and white film with an interest in Architecture and photojournalism, the love of the performance arts soon paved the way for work with images that were very much created rather than captured. Locations are seen as a stage or set where scenes are formed, and the need to create a realistically surreal experience for the viewer is important in the work.

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www.atomicartcompany.com

Tony Kearney CLOSER

I’m fascinated by images where the smallest fragment of what we see falls into focus from within an all-encompassing sea of blur.

This is not something witnessed by the naked eye – one needs the quirks and aberrations of a fully open lens, where selective focus and diffused natural light are seamlessly blended with long exposures.

Through this process, simple objects are transformed and given new life.

This is at the heart of my kitchen table photography, some of my old hidden-away collected treasures are brought out and rediscovered. Placed on the sheeny surface of a time-worn wooden table I bring these elements together with subdued light from a nearby window and then photograph them with a fifty-year-old medium format camera. These photographs were taken over a two-year period, usually on days when it was cold outside or the light too dull, often when the last minutes of daylight only just illuminated the table.

This is my world of CLOSER.

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Tony, along with his partner Sandra Elms, produced work for CLOSER which was exhibited in September 2012 at Primo Estate Winery, in McLaren Vale South Australia as part of the Shimmer Photography Festival.

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I describe myself as an amateur photographer. I was first introduced to photography when I was given a Kodak Instamatic camera as a present at the age of 10. After carefully using up a roll of film it would be sent off in the supplied cloth bag for processing and I’d patiently wait two weeks to get a packet of twenty square, colour images in the post. I still love square format, it has become central to my photography now. My favoured Tmax100 film is loaded into a range of old 6x6 cameras, the older and more manual the better.

I often experiment with alternative processes, expired film, low light and beautiful old lenses, processing my films in the laundry and hanging them in the shower to dry. Two years ago, wanting to gain access to a darkroom again and to formally learn some skills and processes, I enrolled as a mature age student in Year 11 Photography at Senior College in Adelaide and last year completed Year 12, finishing the year with the highest score in South Australia and in the process receiving my first qualification in photography.

Some of the work from my most recent exhibition CLOSER made the final jury round of the International Fine Art Photography Award in Paris.

The word amateur has Latin origins, amare, for the love of.

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www.vivianaperetti.com

Viviana Peretti Desperate Intentions

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“…society on our planet is like the anonymous crowd at a major airport: a crowd of people rushing along in haste, mutually indifferent and ignorant” Ryszard Kapuscinski

Desperate Intentions is a journey through New York, a chaotic and always too busy metropolis. The exchange of words, desires and memories that is typical of many cities often doesn’t exist here where solitary shadows cross the metropolis facing the paradox between the myth of New York as an island of salvation for many immigrants and the human desert that often welcomes newcomers.

This series was shot between 2009 and 2010 using analog cameras, without any digital manipulation.

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Viviana Peretti is an Italian freelance photographer based in New York where in 2010 she graduated in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism from the International Center of Photography.

In 2000, after graduating Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Anthropology from the University of Rome, she moved to Colombia where she specialized in Photojournalism and spent nine years working as a freelance photographer.

She has received fellowships and awards from the International Center of Photography, the Joannie M. Chen Fund in New York, the University of Salamanca, the Spanish Embassy in Colombia, the Photo Museum in Bogota and the Colombian Ministry of Culture. She has been published in a number of international newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, CNN and New York Magazine.

She speaks English, Italian, Portuguese (Advanced Level CELPE, Certificate for Fluency in Portuguese for Foreigners) and Spanish (Advanced Level DELE, Diploma in Spanish as a Foreign Language).

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Front image Tony Kearney Back IMAGE Jai-Yon Shim Please note no image in BETA can be reproduced without the artists prior permission. All images are protected by copyright and belong to the artist.

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