Image: MacDonaldStrand, Untitled, from the series No More Flags, 2021/2023. See page 149.
PHOTO 2024 International Festival of Photography is a state-wide biennial celebrating exceptional new photography, art and ideas.
The world has changed immeasurably in recent years, and what lies ahead is far from certain. Responding to the theme ‘The Future Is Shaped by Those Who Can See It’, our third edition sees over 150 visionary artists and photographers share their insights into life as it is today to raise questions about what lies in store for us tomorrow – from AI-generated images and novel ways to avoid surveillance, to climate futures and animal espionage.
You are invited to explore a trail of 100 free exhibitions and outdoor art installations across seven Festival Precincts in Melbourne, as well as five cities in regional Victoria. Along the way you will discover some of the biggest names in contemporary photography – Nan Goldin, Malick Sidibé, Carmen Winant, Ryan McGinley and Edward Burtynsky to name a few – alongside rising stars that point to the future of the medium.
PHOTO 2024 is bursting with World Premieres, Australian Premieres, new commissions, and exclusive exhibitions curated specially for the festival. You will encounter important First Nations voices, be inspired by queer artists from around the world, and see new work by some of Australia’s most celebrated women photographers including Rosemary Laing, Debra Phillips, Janet Laurence, Julie Millowick, Jill Orr, and 2023 Bowness Photography Prize winner Anne Zahalka.
This year sees 29 large-scale outdoor displays at iconic locations across Melbourne such as Parliament of Victoria, St Paul’s Cathedral and Melbourne Town Hall—not to mention a monumental 20-metre installation by Nan Goldin on the façade of Fed Square’s Atrium. We are also bringing art to the Fed Square screen, with exclusive screenings by the likes of Cao Fei, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Noémie Goudal.
Exclusive exhibitions include New Photographers featuring Melbourne’s most promising new talents; Uncanny Valley: Photography, Tech and the Hyperreal that presents portraits of cyborgs alongside portraits by cyborgs; and 7 Photographs that Shaped the
Future, a shortlist of images that have changed the course of history.
A special addition for PHOTO 2024 is Queer PHOTO, Melbourne’s first festival of queer photography presented by Midsumma and PHOTO Australia. Works by international artists such as Sunil Gupta, Clifford Prince King, Daniel Jack Lyons, FAFSWAG and Vic Bakin sit alongside new commissions by local artists including Lilah Benetti, Salote Tawale and Leilani Fuimaono.
In addition to the artistic program, we’re presenting a full events program of tours, talks, film screenings and workshops, concentrated across four focus weekends that allow photography lovers at all levels to participate – from Opening Weekend celebrations and Regional Weekend excursions, to stimulating discussions at the Ideas Weekend, and a world of photography books to browse and buy at the Photobook Weekend. Don’t miss our first Ideas Summit on Friday 15 March, bringing together some of the most exciting minds in photography and visual culture for a unique day that is set to inspire and entertain.
PHOTO 2024’s expansive program is an invitation to be curious about the possible and parallel futures that lie ahead – those we hope for, and those we fear – and a provocation to question how our lives in the present can impact our individual and collective futures.
As you begin your PHOTO 2024 journey, I would like to extend an enormous thank you to all the photographers, artists, curators, art workers, advisors, sponsors, and philanthropists that have come together over the last few years to make this festival possible.
Presented by PHOTO Australia in partnership with over 50 cultural, education, industry, government and corporate partners, PHOTO 2024 is an epic undertaking and a truly collaborative endeavour. It all adds up to a striking vision of life now and in the future. And now it’s yours to explore!
Elias Redstone Founder/Artistic Director PHOTO Australia
The
Hon. Colin
Brooks MP Minister For Creative Industries
PHOTO 2024 brings the best in photography to our creative state, taking over Melbourne city spaces and five regional galleries with 100 free exhibitions. This festival of photography showcases the work of 150 artists from Victoria and around the world, and includes exciting collaborations with the likes of Midsumma Festival, Fed Square and State Library Victoria. This is a jam-packed event that all Victorians can enjoy. Congratulations, and thank you, to the PHOTO 2024 team.
Sally Capp
Lord Mayor, City of Melbourne
We’re delighted to welcome the third edition of PHOTO 2024 International Festival of Photography to the streets of Melbourne, featuring an incredible free art trail that weaves through the city’s iconic landmarks and laneways. This is Melbourne’s moment to come together and celebrate the magic of photography; an art that helps us all connect as we set our sights on a shared future. The impressive scale of PHOTO 2024 bolsters our city’s status as an international arts capital and elevates the unique vision of Melburnian artists alongside the world’s best.
Mark Henry Chair, PHOTO Australia
PHOTO 2024 brings together incredible artists and photographers to explore some of the most pressing challenges we face as a society. This year, the festival proudly opens with the Biennale of Sydney and Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, aligning Australia’s three major biennials to create an exciting moment for contemporary art in this country. Thank you to all the artists, partners, patrons, and supporters that have come together to create PHOTO 2024. We look forward to welcoming visitors to Melbourne and Victoria to experience 24 days of the most inspiring photography and visual culture.
With a trail of 100 free exhibitions and outdoor artworks to explore, along with special events, talks and workshops across 24 days, we encourage you to plan your visit to ensure you can experience PHOTO 2024 to its fullest. For more information visit photo.org.au/plan-your-visit
All PHOTO 2024 exhibitions are free. Some events are ticketed or require registration in advance. Information in this Festival Guide is correct at the time of printing. For full event listings and updates to the program please visit photo.org.au or our partners’ websites.
Want further information? Visit our Festival Hub at 6–10 Otter St, Collingwood. Open 11am–5pm, Wednesday to Saturday.
Many of the venues in the CBD, Fitzroy/ Collingwood and Brunswick Precincts are within walking distance of each other or via a short trip on public transport, with many sites located in the Free Tram Zone. Regional venues can be accessed by V/Line services. Visit Public Transport Victoria for more information.
We endeavour to provide as much access information as possible for each exhibition and event on our website. Please contact the venue directly about specific access requirements. While care has been taken to place outdoor exhibitions in locations which are as accessible as possible, some access may be restricted.
Visit photo.org.au/channel for exclusive content including interviews with artists and curators.
Outdoor artworks are accompanied by audio commentary by artists and curators. Scan the QR code on the information panel at the artwork to access.
The PHOTO 2024 Young Person’s Guide is a comprehensive resource to assist teachers working with students from Year 9 to 12 to navigate a number of outdoor artworks in the CBD on the PHOTO 2024 art trail. Download the guide at photo.org.au/plan-your-visit
Don’t miss our festival of queer photography with outdoor artworks and gallery exhibitions by 17 local and international artists (pp. 118–133) and accompanying events. Queer PHOTO is presented by Midsumma and PHOTO 2024 in association with Trocadero Projects and is supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund.
Follow @photofestivalau on Instagram and Facebook.
Subscribe at photo.org.au/subscribe for festival updates and recommendations.
There are 100 exhibitions to explore across seven Festival Precincts in Melbourne, as well as five cities in regional Victoria. Maps are available on pages 150–160.
→ Start your PHOTO 2024 journey at Fed Square
→ Explore lightboxes along the river, films on the Fed Square screen and exhibitions in the historic Nicholas Building
→ Revisit photos that changed the course of history (p. 42)
→ Immerse yourself in the work of Icons Malick Sidibé (p. 54) and Rennie Ellis (p. 53 and p. 56)
→ Question the impact of photography on AI at RMIT Gallery (p. 58) and find the laneway lightboxes nearby (p. 52)
→ Make your way to Arts House to see work by South Asian artists (p. 62)
→ Don’t miss our newest Festival Precinct that celebrates Brunswick’s dynamic art scene
→ Be inspired by First Nations art (pp. 98–100)
→ Discover emerging artists at New Photographers (p. 96) and uncover the truth behind The Doom Buggies (p. 101)
→ Explore environmental futures at the Museum of Australian Photography (pp. 102–107)
→ Spend time with group exhibitions at Monash University (p. 108) and Glen Eira City Council Gallery (p. 110)
→ When it comes to skateboarding, the future is female at Prahran Skate Park (p. 114)
→ Walk down Spring Street and check out large-scale artworks – try and spot people hiding in plain sight (p. 69)
→ Question our relationship to water from the perspective of First Nations women (p. 64)
→ See portraits of cyborgs and portraits by cyborgs (p. 70)
→ Explore Queer PHOTO exhibitions and outdoor artworks across Footscray, Newport and Werribee
→ Experience an Aotearoa-based queer Polynesian arts collective (p. 126) and AI-generated drag queens (p. 119)
→ Wander through the lush Werribee Park Mansion gardens (pp. 132–133)
→ Stop by our Festival Hub for info and check out portraits of local pop star Troye Sivan (p. 82)
→ Visit the Centre for Contemporary Photography and explore how the past shapes the future (p. 74)
→ Gallery hop and enjoy the buzz of Melbourne’s Inner North
→ Precinct Partner: Milieu
→ Get out of Melbourne and visit galleries in Ballarat, Benalla, Castlemaine, Morwell and Shepparton
→ Don’t miss an installation by cult American photographer Ryan McGinley at Shepparton Art Museum (p. 140)
→ Journey 50 years into the future at Benalla Art Gallery (p. 142) and back to the 1980s with Icon Nan Goldin at Art Gallery of Ballarat (p. 136)
Celebrate the launch of PHOTO 2024 at a full weekend of exhibition openings, talks and activities across Melbourne, and special events continuing throughout the week.
Visit photo.org.au for full event listings, ticket sales and registrations.
5.30–6pm Smoking Ceremony
Join us for a Welcome to Country by Traditional Owners to launch PHOTO 2024, Fed Square
6–8pm CBD Gallery Night
→ Opening: A constant state of transformation, MAPh x Arts@Collins
→ Opening: Anne Zahalka, ARC ONE Gallery
→ Opening: Rosemary Laing, Tolarno Galleries
→ Opening: Future Anterior, Blindside
→ Opening: Rozalind Drummond, CAVES
→ Opening: Debra Phillips, Void_Melbourne
11–11.30am
→ Talk: Anna Carey, Sophie Gannon Gallery, South Precinct
→ Talk: Benjamin Prabowo Sexton, Daine Singer, Brunswick Precinct
12–1pm
→ Talk: Isabella Capezio, Res Artis Project Space, Fitzroy/ Collingwood Precinct
12–2pm
→ Opening and artist talks: New Photographers, Daine Singer, Brunswick Precinct
→ Opening: Work in Progress, The Store, Abbotsford Convent, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
12.30–1.30pm
→ Talk: Debra Phillips, Void_Melbourne, Melbourne Arts Precinct
1–2pm
→ Talk: Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis and Dr Peta Clancy, Hillvale, Brunswick Precinct
1–4pm
→ Queer PHOTO Workshop: Pet Portraits with Elvin Lam, Footscray Community Arts, West Precinct
1–4.30pm
→ Film screening: Six Young Punks—GDR Documentary Double Feature, The Capitol, Swanston Street
2–3.30pm
→ Talk: UNTOLD with Corben Mudjandi and Jemima Wyman, Agency Projects, Collingwood. Presented in partnership with MAPh.
6.30–8.30pm
→ Queer PHOTO Opening: Sunil Gupta, Wyndham Art Gallery, West Precinct
7–9pm
→ Opening and spoken word performance: Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis, Hillvale, Brunswick Precinct
2–3pm
→ Opening: HELLLO I NEED A CAT, MADA Gallery, South Precinct
→ Talk: Anne O’Hehir on Nan Goldin, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Regional ($10 General $8 Members)
2–4pm
→ Opening: nireekshane—the act of seeing, Arts House, State Library Precinct
→ Opening: Yhonnie Scarce, THIS IS NO FANTASY, Fitzroy/ Collingwood Precinct
→ Opening: J Davies & Lisa Tomasetti, James Makin Gallery, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
→ Opening: Trent Crawford, Animal House Fine Arts, Brunswick Precinct
3–4pm
→ Talk: Ruth Höflich, Gertrude Glasshouse, Fitzroy/ Collingwood Precinct
4–6pm
→ Opening: Carmen Winant, FUTURES, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
→ Opening: wani toaishara, West Space, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
→ Opening: Eden Menta, Arts Project Australia, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
→ Workshop: Dance with KWABO Festival, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
6–8pm
→ Opening: Only the future revisits the past, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
11.30am–12.30pm
→ Talk: Omar Victor Diop, Nikki Lam and Tace Stevens, Only the future revisits the past, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
12–4.30pm
→ Queer PHOTO Tour: Wyndham, West Precinct
1–2pm
→ Meet the Artist – Jill Orr, Linden New Art, South Precinct
1–2.30pm
→ Queer PHOTO Screening and Talk: Clifford Prince King, Footscray Community Arts, West Precinct
Monday 04 March
6.30–7.30pm
→ Talk: KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival, MPavilion
Tuesday 05 March
6–7pm
→ Talk: Mark Sealy, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
Wednesday 06 March
6–8pm
→ Talk: Omar Victor Diop, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
1–3pm
→ Opening: Edward Burtynsky, Janet Laurence, Sonia Payes, Lingam.K and Corben Mudjandi, Museum of Australian Photography, South Precinct
4.30–6.30pm
→ Opening: Edge of Elsewhere, Glen Eira City Council Gallery, South Precinct
6–8.30pm
→ Workshop: Architectural Photography, MPavilion
6–9pm
→ Linden Creates: Photo Practice Program, Linden New Art, South Precinct ($395)
Friday 08 March
6–8pm
→ Special event: Future River, International Women’s Day Performances, presented by Brunswick Music Festival, Blak Dot, Counihan Gallery and Next Wave, Brunswick Precinct
Head into regional Victoria for a long weekend celebrating PHOTO 2024 exhibitions in Ballarat, Benalla, Castlemaine, Morwell and Shepparton.
Thursday 07 March
6–9pm
→ Opening: Scotty So, Benalla Art Gallery, Benalla
Friday 08 March
10am–12pm
→ Opening and Talk: Laresa Kosloff, Benalla Art Gallery, Benalla
4:30–5.30pm
→ Talk: Motherhood: Ying Ang and invited guests, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell
6–8.30pm
→ Opening: Autumn Exhibition Season Celebration, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell
Saturday 09 March
3–9pm
→ Opening: Ryan McGinley Official Opening Celebrations, Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton
Sunday 10 March
11.30am–12.30pm
→ Talk: Julie Millowick and Kyla McFarlane, Castlemaine Art Museum, Castlemaine
2–3pm
→ Talk: Scotty So with Julie McLaren, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Ballarat ($10 General / $8 Members)
Explore the research and thinking behind PHOTO 2024 exhibitions in a program of talks, workshops, activities and film screenings on and around the Ideas Weekend.
Join us for our first PHOTO Ideas Summit, an inspiring global forum exploring the future of photography. The unmissable full day event will celebrate artists and stories from around the world, with speakers including Carmen Winant, Boris Eldagsen, Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis, Sunil Gupta, Daniel Jack Lyons, Mous Lamrabat, Serwah Attafuah, Jo Duck, Kirsten Lyttle, Mark Andrejevic and many more.
Supported by Fed Square and Museum of Australian Photography
Venue
The Edge, Federation Square, Melbourne
Tickets
$125 / $80 Concession
For tickets, visit our website photo.org.au/events/ideas-summit
Screened exclusively for PHOTO 2024’s Ideas Weekend, Sirens (2019–2021) is Nan Goldin’s first film made entirely from found footage, using familiar scenes to touch upon the subject of addiction and its effects. Goldin references the Sirens of Greek mythology, whose beautiful songs seduced desperate sailors to a tragic death at sea. The film prompts a similar hypnotic effect on the viewer, entrancing them into a sensual feeling of delirium.
Sirens is composed of short clips from thirty films including footage from a 1988 London rave, and works by Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, Lynne Ramsay, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni.
Venue
ACMI, Federation Square, Melbourne
Opening Hours
10am–5pm
No bookings required
Duration 15:54 (looped)
Tuesday 12 March
3–4pm
→ Tour: execute_photography, RMIT Gallery, State Library Precinct
Friday 15 March
7–9.10pm
→ Film screening: Nan Goldin–All The Beauty and the Bloodshed, ACMI, Melbourne Arts Precinct R18+ ($18 / Concession $14 / ACMI Members $12)
Saturday 16 March
11am–12pm
→ Talk: Image as Program, RMIT Gallery, State Library Precinct
12–12.30pm
→ Talk: Benjamin Prabowo Sexton, Daine Singer, Brunswick Precinct
12–3pm
→ Workshop: Cut + Paste, Arts Project Australia, Fitzroy/ Collingwood Precinct
1–3pm
→ Workshop: Linden Creates – Paper Boats with Dagmara Gieysztor, Linden New Art, South Precinct
→ Workshop: Subject of Desire – Self-Portraiture with Luce Nguyên-Hunt, Trocadero Projects, West Precinct
1–4pm
→ Film: What the machines saw and remembered—two films by CAMP, The Capitol, Swanston Street
Sunday 17 March
1.30–2pm
→ Queer PHOTO Workshop: How to preserve your queer history with the Australian Queer Archives, The Substation, West Precinct
11am–3pm
→ Symposium: Disruptions, Distractions and Generated Visual Realities, Photography Studies College, South Melbourne
Monday 18 March
6–8pm
→ Talk: Collecting Photography Today, MARS Gallery, South Precinct
5.30–7pm
→ Talk: En-visioning infrastructure, RMIT Design Hub, State Library Precinct
2–3pm
→ Talk: What will the future look like? Glen Eira City Council Gallery, South Precinct
2–4pm
→ Workshop: who ate the archive? Blindside, Melbourne Arts Precinct
→ Talk: Future River, Counihan Gallery, Brunswick Precinct
4–5pm
→ Talk: Trent Crawford, Animal House Fine Arts, Brunswick Precinct
2–3pm
→ Talk: What will the future look like? Glen Eira City Council Gallery, South Precinct
The PHOTO 2024 Photobook Weekend is taking place for the first time at Abbotsford Convent with a full program of talks, panel conversations, awards and a photobook market, co-curated with Matt Dunne, Angus Scott and Rohan Hutchison.
Magdalen Laundries, Abbotsford Convent, 1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford
Saturday 23 March 10am–6pm, Sunday 24 March 11am–3pm
Photobook Market
Browse and purchase books by local and international photographers and publishers including acb press (AU), Bad News Books (NZ), Hong Kong Photobook Festival (HK), Imageless (CN), M.33 (AU), MACK (UK), Perimeter Books (AU), Rondade (JP), Tall Poppy Press (AU), Uneven Press (AU).
Exhibition: Australian Women Photographers
A new touring exhibition from PHOTO Australia celebrates women photographers who are receiving international acclaim and reaching new audiences through publishing. Collectively these publications reflect a variety of approaches to contemporary practice and address a range of subjects –social, political and environmental – of universal concern.
Australian and New Zealand Photobook Awards
View the finalists for the award that represents the very best of new publishing from Australia and Aotearoa. Presented by Photo Collective and PHOTO Australia.
Exhibition: Beauty in Small Things
Smaller format books often exhibit playfulness and creativity. In this exhibition curated by Matt Dunne and Bella Capezio a selection of publications are presented to celebrate what a smaller footprint can do for photography, for books and for the viewer. Featuring books primarily from the Asia Pacific Photobook Archive, Dunne has also selected 15 additional titles from his personal collection to highlight what is possible when artists embrace a smaller size.
Industrial School, Abbotsford Convent, 1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford
Saturday 23 March
10–11am
→ Abbotsford Convent Exhibitions Tour
11–11.45am
→ Everything you always wanted to know about photobooks*
*But were afraid to ask
11.45am–12.30pm
→ Regional Dialects: Photobook publishing around the world
12.30pm-1pm
→ The Queer Bogan Photobook with Kyle Archie Knight and Liss Fenwick
1–1.30pm
→ Meet the Maker: Daniel Jack Lyons
2.30–3pm
→ Meet the Maker: Anu Kumar
3–3.30pm
→ Meet the Maker: Rondade
3.30–4pm
→ Meet the Maker: Nicholas Walton-Healey
4–4.30pm
→ Meet the Maker: Ann Shelton
4.30–5pm
→ Book Launch: Sarah Walker—The Well
5–5.30pm
→ Book Launch: Ayman Kaake—99 Names
5.30–6pm
→ Australian and New Zealand Photobook Awards Announcement
Sunday 24 March
11–11.45am
→ Reading Photobooks with Melbourne Photobook Collective
11.45am–12.30pm
→ This Photobook Changed My Life: Artists and makers reveal the publications that have inspired them
12.30–1pm
→ Meet the Maker: MOM
1–1.30pm
→ Meet the Maker: Photobook Ketchup
1.30–2pm
→ Meet the Maker: Ilsa Wynne-Hoelscher Kidd
2–2.30pm
→ Meet the Maker: Honey Long and Prue Stent
Thursday 21 March
6–7.30pm
→ Talk: Future Anterior—artist talks and readings, Emeline Robinson-Shaw, Blindside, Melbourne Arts Precinct
Friday 22 March
10.30am–4pm
→ Photobook Presentation, Workshop and Portfolio Reviews with Regina Anzenberger and Doug Spowart, Photography Studies College, South Melbourne
6–8pm
→ Book Launch: Reproduction by Janina Green, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
Saturday 23 March
2–4pm
→ Film screening and book display: J Davies, James Makin Gallery, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
Sunday 24 March 11am–12pm
→ Queer PHOTO Talk: Getting Published with Archer Magazine, The Substation, West Precinct
1–3pm
→ Queer PHOTO Workshop: DIY Photobooks with Suzanne Phoenix, The Substation, West Precinct
Be inspired and learn new skills at PHOTO 2024. For more info visit photo.org.au/workshops
Saturday 2 March
1–4pm
→ Queer PHOTO: Pet Portraits with Elvin Lam, Footscray Community Arts, West Precinct
Sunday 3 March
6–8.30pm
→ Architectural Photography, MPavilion
Wednesday 6 March
6–9pm
→ Linden Creates: Photo Practice Program, Linden New Art, South Precinct ($395)
Saturday 9 March
6–8.30pm
→ Architectural Photography, MPavilion
Sunday 10 March
1–5pm
→ Queer PHOTO Workshop: Cyanotype, Isabella Capezio, West Precinct
Wednesday 13 March
6–8pm
→ Archives Under Surveillance, Photography Studies College
Saturday 16 March
12–3pm
→ Cut + Paste: Jack Cannon, Arts Project Australia, Fitzroy/ Collingwood Precinct
1–3pm
→ Linden Creates: Paper Boat Workshop with Dagmara Gieysztor, Linden New Art, South Precinct
→ Queer PHOTO: Subject of Desire – Self-Portraiture with Luce Nguyên-Hunt, Trocadero Projects, West Precinct
2–4pm
→ who ate the archive? Blindside, Melbourne Arts Precinct
Sunday 17 March
11am–2.30pm
→ Queer PHOTO Workshop: How to preserve your queer history with the Australian Queer Archives, The Substation, West Precinct
Sunday 24 March
1–3pm
→ Queer PHOTO Workshop: DIY Photobooks with Suzanne Phoenix, The Substation, West Precinct
Be guided through PHOTO 2024 by curators and experts. For more info visit photo.org.au/tours
Sunday 3 March
12–4.30pm
→ Queer PHOTO Tour, Wyndham Precinct
Saturday 9 March
10am–1pm
→ MAPh x PHOTO 2024 Melbourne Arts Precinct Tour ($20 General / Free MAPh Members)
12–1pm
→ Brunswick Precinct Tour ($10)
Sunday 10 March
10–11am
→ Melbourne Art Precinct Tour ($10)
12.30–1.30pm
→ Parliament Precinct Tour ($10)
Wednesday 13 March
6.30–7.30pm
→ Melbourne Arts Precinct—Lightboxes at Dusk ($10)
Friday 8 March
3–4pm
→ Melbourne Out Loud: Life through the lens of Rennie Ellis, State Library Victoria, State Library Precinct
Saturday 9 March
11.30–12pm
→ Only the future revisits the past, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
Tuesday 12 March
3–4pm
→ execute_photography, RMIT Gallery, State Library Precinct
Photography Studies College is leading free hour-long tours in the CBD specifically tailored for groups of secondary school students and their teachers. For more information contact Melanie Miller at mmiller@psc.edu.au
Museum of Australian Photography offers onsite and virtual tours for primary, secondary, VCE, Diploma and tertiary students with a Curator or Educator. For bookings visit maph.org.au/learn. Guided tours of A constant state of transformation at Arts @ Collins are available by appointment: maph@monash.vic.gov.au
Saturday 16 March
11am–12pm
→ Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct Tour ($10)
1–2pm
→ State Library Precinct Tour ($10)
Sunday 17 March
10–11am
→ Melbourne Art Precinct Tour ($10)
12.30–1.30pm
→ Parliament Precinct Tour ($10)
3–5.30pm
→ Melbourne Camera Club Photowalk, Melbourne Arts Precinct
Saturday 23 March
10–11am
→ Abbotsford Convent Exhibitions Tour ($10)
Thursday 21 March
6.30–8pm
→ nireekshane – the act of seeing, Arts House, State Library Precinct
Saturday 16 March
11.30–12pm
→ Only the future revisits the past, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
Saturday 23 March
11.30–12pm
→ Only the future revisits the past, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) is offering free school tours of the exhibition Only the future revisits the past. At 1pm on Friday 8th, 15th, 22nd March. Please call CCP for further details on 03 9417 1549
For self-guided tours to navigate a number of outdoor artworks in the CBD of outdoor, download the PHOTO 2024 Young Person’s Guide at photo.org.au/plan-your-visit
PHOTO 2024 celebrates three iconic artists who have made an indelible mark on the art and culture of photography.
Born 1953, Washington DC, USA Lives and works New York, USA
Emerging from the artist’s own life and relationships, and often including herself as a subject, Nan Goldin’s work has transformed the role of photography in contemporary art. Her photographs and moving-image works address essential themes of identity, love, sexuality, addiction, and mortality. Uniting art and activism, Goldin has confronted the HIV/ AIDS epidemic since the 1980s and today brings international attention to the overdose crisis. Goldin’s influence is celebrated in the exhibition The Ballad of Sexual Dependency at Art Gallery of Ballarat (p. 136), a 20-metre installation at Fed Square (p. 40), and a special screening of All The Beauty and the Bloodshed (p. 17) and an exclusive installation of Sirens at ACMI (p. 16).
Born 1935, Soloba, Mali Died 2016, Bamako, Mali
Known as ‘the Eye of Bamako’, Malick Sidibé became famous for his studio portraits taken at Studio Malick and images capturing an emerging youth culture set against the backdrop of a new era for Mali after its independence from France in 1960. His photographs are both historical records and intimate celebrations of a new national identity, and in 2007 he became the first African and first photographer to win the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale. PHOTO 2024 celebrates his incredible legacy with his first solo exhibition in Australia (p. 54).
Born 1940, Melbourne, Australia Died 2003, Melbourne, Australia
Rennie Ellis was an award-winning photographer and writer who saw his photographic excursions as a series of encounters with other people’s lives. He was as much at home capturing Carnival in Rio de Janeiro as recording the backstage preparations of the Kirov Ballet. But it was in his hometown that Rennie’s eye for the salient image met his insider knowledge, creating an incredible photographic record of Melbourne life. A special exhibition at State Library Victoria (p. 56) revisits his archive, and the exhibition Protest (p. 53) highlights the important role he played in documenting demonstrations and social change.
Across 100 exhibitions, you’re invited into a conversation with photographers, artists, curators, and academics about what lies ahead, and how today’s actions are shaping future realities. Explore possible and parallel across five thematic strands.
Social Futures
As fights for human rights persist across the globe, questions endure: who has the power in society?
The lens falls on protest in No More Flags and Jemima Wyman’s Dissent Atlas, in which images from demonstrations around the world are cut up and re-imagined. Kenton/Davey amplify the voices of young adults, César Dezfuli charts the lives of migrants, Carmen Winant shares her Notes for the last safe abortion, and CCP’s Only the future revisits the past brings together artists to speculate future states and possibilities.
Meanwhile Ryan McGinley’s YEARBOOK, Mous Lamrabat’s Moustopia, Karabo Mooki’s portraits of Black women skateboarders in South Africa, Yarema & Himey’s films made before and after invasion in Ukraine, and the South Asian artists of nireekshane – the act of seeing explore the diversity and beauty of identity across the world.
Indigenous Futures
Placing Indigenous thinking front and centre, these selfdetermined imaginings are key to an Indigenous-led future.
Tony Albert explores past and present depictions of Indigenous Australians in two distinctly different exhibitions, Ashtralia and Warakurna Superheroes. Naarm-based artists Maree Clarke, Julie Gough, Jody Haines and Peta Clancy rediscover the rivers still running deep beneath the concrete in the twenty-first century city in Future River: When the past flows
Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis maps the intersections of place, identity, and family to disrupt and subvert colonial approaches to image-making and mapping systems, Yhonnie Scarce reflects on her personal and family history in South Australia, and Congolese artist wani toaishara explores Black life and representation, dislocation and Indigeneity as well as the effects of colonialism on Africa and its diaspora.
Environmental Futures
As the Anthropocene and climate catastrophe reshape our planet, and the human-made increasingly outweighs the natural, what solutions can be offered?
The Museum of Australian Photography is dedicating its galleries and grounds – plus an additional site in the CBD – to environmental stories, including a new series by Edward Burtynsky documenting Australian resource mining landscapes. Elsewhere, Rosemary Laing, Julie Millowick, Jill Orr, Ruth Höflich and Amos Gebhardt bring new perspectives on how humans impact, and are impacted by, nature.
In With Water, three First Nations women from Australia, Bolivia and Ecuador explore our relationship with the most precious resource on Earth. Noémie Goudal illustrates our burning world in a mesmerising film, and the exhibition Edge of Elsewhere meditates on how societal and environmental ideologies will impact us now and in the future.
Technological Futures
Emerging technological developments are changing the way we see the future and approach image-making.
The exhibition Uncanny Valley: Photography, Tech and the Hyperreal explores the sense of unease that overcomes us when technology presents as too human, and surveillance culture falls under scrutiny in the work of CAMP and Jo Duck. execute_photography speculates on how AI will impact the medium of photography, while AI tools are employed in an immersive installation by Memo Akten, and by Scotty So to propel young people 50 years into the future.
Cao Fei questions our understanding of the metaverse, filip custic visualises the intersection of human bodies and digital technologies, and Chloé Milos Azzopardi imagines technologies created from natural elements.
Queer Futures
From trans and queer youth in the Amazon to AI-generated drag queens, Queer PHOTO – a festival-within-a-festival presented by PHOTO Australia and Midsumma – brings local and international LGBTQIA+ voices to venues and public spaces across Melbourne’s western suburbs. The 14 exhibitions include Australian Premieres by Sunil Gupta, Clifford Prince King and FAFSWAG alongside new commissions and projects by local artists.
Elsewhere, J Davies celebrates queer resilience, survival and joy, Isabella Capezio unpacks the relationship between queerness and camouflage, Eden Menta explores the intersections of queerness and neurodiversity, and Ayman Kaake’s 99 Names is an unapologetic celebration of queer voices that looks to a hopeful future in the face of homosexuality still being a crime in at least 74 countries around the world.
Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Fed Square
Federation Square, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Social Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Presented in partnership with the City of Melbourne
Supported by Fed Square
Moroccan-Belgian photographer Mous Lamrabat shapes a parallel universe, filtering his own multicultural brand through humour, empathy, and irreverence. Lamrabat subverts North African stereotypes, expertly layering Western brands and pop culture with symbols from his Euro-Afro heritage and faith. The result? Pure joy. Colour, audacity, and clever mise en scène define his work, with a positive energy that is as irresistible as it is provocative.
Born in an Amazigh village in the north of Morocco, Mous Lamrabat grew up in Belgium, where he remembers feeling different, and this “otherness” has fuelled his photographic vision. A trip to Morocco hit him, like a flash of warm southern light, revealing his inner voice: “It was there, standing right in front of me”. He began to build his own supercharged universe, where nothing is off-limits and everyone is invited to the mix. The characters that emerge from his work go wherever they choose to go, be whoever they choose to be.
Lamrabat take us on an exotic journey, sharing his world, where imagination runs wild.
Moorina Bonini (Yorta Yorta/Wurundjeri/Wiradjuri)
Cao Fei (CN)
LaToya Ruby Frazier (US)
Caroline Garcia (AU)
Noémie Goudal (FR)
From flaming jungles to taxi-ride chit-chat, five artists look to the future from very different standpoints.
2
Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Metro Tunnel Creative Program screens Federation Square, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Exhibition Time Daily, 5–11pm 60 minute duration (looped)
Theme Social Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by Fed Square
Embracing a handful of approaches to the future, from hard-hitting documentary photography following a man-made water crisis, to the world on fire, and an on-the-run documentary about what the everyman thinks the metaverse really is, these are films to get you thinking and feeling.
Screening daily on the big screen at Fed Square and featuring some of the most interesting Australian and international artists working with moving image, this film program provides space to reflect on artists’ views of the future of the environment, culture and technology.
The changing identity of the Australian outback.
Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Fed Square Metro Tunnel Screens
Federation Square, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time Daily, 7am–11pm, Screened every 30 minutes
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by Metro Tunnel Creative Program
What is coming to pass on this enormous continent as the Earth changes? What does the future hold for communities facing the impact of the climate crisis?
Big Sky is a photographic survey of this nation’s heartland. The Australian bush is an ancient land of Aboriginal countries renamed and reshaped by colonisation. In recent years the transition to large-scale mining, the mechanisation of farming, and a population shift to larger regional centres has reshaped the cultural and environmental landscape. It has also suffered from the gamut of extreme weather linked to climate change—bushfires, flooding and drought.
In this ambitious project, Adam Ferguson takes in the fading yet iconic events of rural life, shrinking small-towns, Aboriginal connection to Country, pastoralism, the impacts of globalisation and the adversity of climate change. In doing so, he asks whether the Australian identity of yore still rings true, particularly when seen in the context of the complex realities of contemporary life in the Outback.
Global unrest collaged into vast landscapes.
Outdoor Art, World Premiere
Venue Fed Square Federation Square, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Social Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Commissioned by PHOTO Australia and City of Melbourne
Supported by Fed Square In association with Agency
Since 2008, Jemima Wyman has collected hundreds of online images related to camouflage used in global protest.
The photo-collage works from Wyman’s Haze series weave various images of smoke together to form landscapes. They become an atlas of recent global dissent. Meanwhile, her Declassified series utilises the discarded photo pieces that fall to her studio floor to depict the negative space around where smoke appears during protest—revealing defiant protesters, police with shields on masse, hands holding flares and the detritus left from conflict in the street.
The titles for these artworks are multipage records detailing each constituent image and the associated protest, location, and date, gathering disparate historical moments into a partial yet sweeping account of global unrest.
Yalanji)
The real-life superheroes of the remote Northern Territory.
Outdoor Art
Venue
Birrarung Lightboxes
Southbank Promenade, Southbank
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Indigenous Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Commissioned by PHOTO Australia and City of Melbourne
Warakurna Superheroes was developed by Tony Albert and David C Collins in collaboration with children from a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory. The children made their own props and costumes, dressing up as superheroes and Star Wars characters, and posing against the dramatic outback landscapes of their hometown, Warakurna. Albert utilises popular culture to connect with, give power to and inject love and appreciation into people who sometimes feel forgotten by the rest of Australia.
“Superheroes might fly or become invisible, but in our own communities, what about helping our elders, or retaining culture?” asks Tony Albert. “That can be a superpower in its own right. Superheroes also have a powerful connection to Aboriginal culture and our stories of creation. We have incredible people and animals who did these amazing things in terms of land formation and our Dreaming.”
Tony Albert and David C Collins collaborated with Kieran Lawson, Renisha Ward-Yates, Kieran Smythe-Jackson and Brittany Malbunka Reid in making these works.
Blurring the lines between real people and imagined scenarios.
Outdoor Art, World Premiere
Venue
Birrarung Lightboxes
Southbank Promenade, Southbank
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Indigenous Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia Commissioned by PHOTO Australia and City of Melbourne
We are living in a moment of flux, where the digital and the physical are beginning to meet.
The portraits in The Dark Current: Blue screen sit at the intersection of the realms of digital and physical space, where the blue screen of a monitor seems to morph into the blue surface of a surging ocean. On one side of these lightboxes, figures pose, primed to enter a digital space. Their stances, costumes and the setting within which they stand all combine to prepare them to be avatars within the artist’s computer-generated, meticulously crafted live-action scenes... yet on the reverse of each of these images, a figure plunges into water, entering another dimension altogether.
Angela Tiatia’s work is inflected by her Samoan heritage, and she often explores contemporary culture through the lenses of history, popular and material culture. These portraits form part of a larger series of work, Dark Current, for which the artist spent three years filming across four countries. The result is a sweeping series of twists and turns through a variety of scenarios to conjure a hopeful vision for the future.
Playful imagery capturing our digital age.
Outdoor Art, Festival Exclusive
Venue
Birrarung Lightboxes
Southbank Promenade, Southbank
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time
24 hrs
Theme
Technological Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Presented in partnership with the City of Melbourne
filip custic works across photography, performance, sculpture, and video to address themes around identity, body and our relationship with technology. The artist focuses his work on the crossover between technology and the body, as a reference to this age of image-obsession, of selfies and how the physical and digital now run in tandem. Mirrors and screens, symbols and references to science and art-historical borrowings come together in this crossover between technology and the body. This exhibition includes new work by custic that has been made specially for their PHOTO 2024 installation.
Hauntings of history.
Outdoor Art, World Premiere
Venue
Birrarung Lightboxes
Southbank Promenade, Southbank
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme
Environmental Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Commissioned by PHOTO Australia and City of Melbourne X-ray courtesy of CSIRO
Western cosmologists say bones are made from material traces of incredibly rare, calcium-rich supernovas—the explosive death and afterlife of unique stars. Sourced from veterinary and scientific x-ray archives, the bones in these photographs belong to native animals injured or killed on Wadawurrung country and oceans off the coast of Australia. Merging x-ray, satellite and long exposure photography, light in these images demands we think beyond the human. Whilst visually alluring, the x-rays reflect a deeper story of colonial impact. Closer inspection reveals lethal injuries from lawn mowers, fish hooks, vehicles and firearms. By enhancing the luminosity of these once animated bones with elements such as fire, smoke, stars and cloud, In memory of stars suggests the entangled lines of connection between cosmology, trauma, and sentience. Lit from within, the creatures are offered as omnipresent hauntings, floating between deep time and futurity. A calling to lost futures.
Photographic collages about the body, architecture, and transformation.
Venue
Arts Centre Melbourne Hoarding Between Hamer Hall and the Arts Centre Melbourne, St Kilda Rd, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
29 February 2024–28 February 2025
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Social Futures
Presented by Fed Square
Artist Zoë Croggon uses archive imagery to respond to the architectural metamorphosis taking place as part of the Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation Project.
Croggon has a background in dance, and the body has long been the focus of her work. She presents the trained body and modern architecture as fascinating counterparts, each unyielding, severe, and rigorously functional in form.
For this project, she has been invited to comb through the expansive collections of archive imagery at Arts Centre Melbourne to create an architectural and historical synthesis responding to this significant shift in Melbourne’s cultural fabric.
A surreal, AI-generated mediation on consciousness and intelligence.
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
ACMI Federation Square, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates 16 July 2023–31 August 2024
Exhibition Time Daily, 10am–5pm
Theme Technological Futures
Curated by Chelsey O’Brien
Supported by Naomi Milgrom AC and the Naomi Milgrom Foundation
This dazzling multi-screen work embraces the interconnectivity of everything, exploring the merging of human and non-human consciousness–via the coded AI musings of octopus-like digital beings.
Originating as an NFT collection on the ecologically-friendly blockchain Tezos, Distributed Consciousness features 256 unique images of octopus-like Tentacular Critters created with custom Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning coded by the artist.
Staged as a place of worship, our Tentacular deities invite us to face the reality that humans may not be the sole keepers of what we think of as “intelligence”, “creativity” or even “consciousness”.
Celebrating an icon of photography.
Outdoor Art
Venue
Atrium, Fed Square
Flinders St Entrance, Federation Square, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time
24 hrs
Theme Social Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Presented by Fed Square
Among the most influential artists of today, Nan Goldin is renowned for her intimate capturing of life around her, and transforming the role of photography in contemporary art. Emerging from the artist’s own life and relationships, her photographs and moving-image works are both deeply personal and profoundly influential, addressing essential themes of identity, love, sexuality and mortality.
Presented across the Federation Square Atrium façade, My Parents on their Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary continues Goldin’s career-long theme of the human need for companionship and, in this instance, looks to the experience of her parents later in life. For the artist, relationships are not only essential to emotional sustenance but the foundation of her artistic practice. As she says: “These pictures come out of relationships, not observation.”
Goldin takes photographs to connect, to keep the people she loves in her memory. She is committed to the idea that photography can faithfully record a time and place, and do so in a way that has real social purpose.
Outdoor Art
Venue
St Paul’s Cathedral Swanston St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Social Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by Helen and Michael Gannon
Certain images have the capacity to change minds, shape our understanding of a situation or bring about action. These seven photographs are perhaps already familiar. Even if we don’t know the exact details, they sit in the popular imagination. Each marks a turning point, whether in the Australian Land Rights Movement, the Environmental Movement, our understanding of a World War, or the way people perceived a humanitarian crisis.
It could be said that history breaks down into images, because they communicate with such immediacy, transcending language and holding stories within them. These photographs are testament to the power of the medium to not only record history, but to shape the future.
Joseph Blair (AU), Indra Liusuari (ID), Autumn Royal (AU), Emily Simek (AU), Bixiao Zhang (CN), Joy Zhou (AU/CN)
Gallery Exhibition
Venue
Blindside
Nicholas Building Room 14, Level 7, 37 Swanston St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
28 February–23 March
Exhibition Time
Wed–Sat, 12–6pm
Theme Social Futures
Curated by Mia Palmer-Verevis, Emeline Robinson-Shaw and Madeleine Sherburn
Future Anterior features the work of lensbased artists who subvert the use of archival technologies as tools of control. Taking its name from the future perfect tense — the “will have been”— Future Anterior explores new methods of record creation which reject the inert chronicling of places and events.
Looking to deconstruct the oppressive logic of surveillance, classification, and preservation embodied by traditional archiving techniques, artists mobilise the material conditions, associations, and histories both indexed and concealed by the image frame. Experimenting with different modes of documentation, Future Anterior offers a flexible basis for collective memory, inviting a space for speculation by thinking through the document as a renewable resource for elaboration and play.
Splicing time, space and collective movement.
Venue
CAVES
Nicholas Building Room 5, Level 8, 37 Swanston St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01–31 March
Exhibition Time
Wed–Sat, 12pm–5pm
Theme
Social Futures
An ensemble of figures appear before us—each is engaged in different modes of performative actions, hinting at the choreographic potential of a collective movement. The group’s actions are suggestive of alternative systems of living and belief, with themes and motifs which are explored in readings about modernist counterculture, architecture, environmentalism, and cinema.
In these photographs and video works we find ourselves in a range of settings: public parks, the interior of empty or uninhabited buildings, houses, and community halls. Utilising collage and splicing images from one into another, these works generate a plurality of possible readings. The scenarios taking place in the images may suggest a shuffling of time frames, past into a possible future, future into the past.
Hiding ugly reality with fake aesthetics.
Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Melbourne Town Hall
90–130 Swanston St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01–21 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Technological Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by the City of Melbourne
Since the 1980s, cell towers have started to fill the planet to create today’s telecommunication networks. The scenery changed dramatically when an antenna was transformed into an artificial pine tree for the first time in 1992. Since then, this kind of camouflage has evolved into a global phenomenon that raises fundamental questions about the relationship between humans and nature.
Second Nature focuses on telecommunication and surveillance infrastructure that became part of the Southern California landscape. The series depicts these artefacts of the digital age as, in writer Amy Clarke’s words, a “societal preference for ‘fake’ aesthetics over ‘ugly’ reality”.
Becoming is the story of an unnamed protagonist as she anticipates the future and works towards truly becoming herself.
Somali/Australian artist Warsan Mohammed chronicles the community and friendship between black Muslim women as she has experienced it. She pays homage to the importance of sacred, safe spaces, allowing them to be their authentic selves, both in the present and as they aspire toward the future. Sustaining the strength of sisterhood is vital for the sustainability of future generations to be proud of their African heritage.
In Becoming, we are reminded that the acceptance of oneself is an ongoing journey.
Bridging utopian thinking with the reality of climate change.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Void_Melbourne
Level 2, 190 Bourke St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01–30 March
Exhibition Time Thu–Sat, 12–5pm
Theme Environmental Futures
Supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants
In Saline, Debra Phillips explores connections between historical utopian thinking and responses to current ecological crises. This new series of photographs builds upon her long-term interest in the way people have imagined, described and created versions of the ideal society.
Inspired by a visit to architect ClaudeNicolas Ledoux’s ideal factory town, the Royal Saltworks of Chaux at Arc-et-Senans, France (built in 1775–79), Saline documents temporary summer gardens—designed in collaboration with school children—surrounding the historic sandstone buildings of the Saltworks.
Today, work continues on Ledoux’s nevercompleted circular town design, not with further buildings but more gardens, focused upon promoting biodiversity and education. Phillips’ images depict a changing, seasonal environment, drawing attention to issues of climate change and collapsing ecologies. Slipping nature into a saturated artificial realm, these images occupy a blurred space between photography and data visualisation.
Michael Najjar (DE)
Leela Schauble (CN/AU)
(CN)
Artists explore our relationship between humans, nature and the potential for transformation.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
MAPh x Arts @ Collins
Level 2, 417 Collins Street, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time Wed–Sun, 10am–4pm
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by Anouska Phizacklea
Supported by MAPh x ACAF Circle, Arts @ Collins and the Australia China Art Foundation
A Constant State of Transformation is a touring exhibition presented by the Museum of Australian Photography
By appointment
German artist and photographer Michael Najjar explores the far-reaching ecological, economic and cultural impacts of climate change which are leading to a redefinition of the relationship between humans and nature. His latest series cool earth spans the arc from an impending dystopian future – which has already arrived in our present – to a technology-based decarbonised post-fossil world.
Working across film, digital collaging and video, Leela Schauble’s Portals series incorporates NASA imagery captured on the dates of recent ecological disasters into photographic collages that act as portals between worlds, inspired by ancient China’s profound appreciation of water, philosophy and connection to heaven and earth.
Living between Shanghai and Munich, Xiao Hui Wang has been writing diaries and documenting her life through photography for over 35 years. The exhibition features 100 works from her ongoing self-portraiture series Visual Diary that documents the healing process she underwent due to a car accident that transformed her life.
Francesca Pili (IT)
#ABRUXAUS
Tourism and catastrophe collide in Sardinia.
Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Knox Place Lightscapes, Melbourne Central
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24hrs
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by RMIT University
Wildfires have ravaged the Italian island of Sardinia for several summers. The fires are just one of the problems affecting the island. Frenzied mass-tourism brings thousands of people to the island, but some fear it does not allow for the economy to develop organically.
The Italian photographer Francesca Pili’s tongue-in-cheek dystopia places tourists into the burnt landscape, as sunbathers and revellers
Liu Di (CN)
A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion Brave new worlds.
Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Rodda Lane, RMIT University
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24hrs
Theme Technological Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by RMIT University
In A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion, Liu Di envisions future worlds and investigates the potential of digital manipulation, departing from documentary photography without completely breaking into fiction. Incorporating methods from photography, painting, and computer graphics, and references to cinema, architecture, and space exploration, the artist seeks an unfamiliar aesthetic in order to
continue their holidays while the island burns. The project’s title refers to a local phrase directed at the arsonists often responsible for these fires.
ponder the question: in what time and space are we living?
“I have no position on what a perfect world could be, or judge the worlds I create,” he says. “Whether they are good or bad worlds, whether you want to live in it or not.”
People shape the future.
Venue
State Library Victoria Forecourt 328 Swanston St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24hrs
Theme Social Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia and State Library Victoria
Protest is integral to a healthy democracy. It can engender debate. It can shape the future.
As one of Australia’s greatest chroniclers, Rennie Ellis documented protest in many guises over the decades. From political upheavals, anti-war marches and gay liberation parades to Aboriginal rights demonstrations and the women’s movement, Ellis made a record of the energy and ethos behind these shifts in Australian society.
In Australia, the right to peaceful assembly is enshrined in international human rights treaties to which the country is a party. It is of great importance to the future of our everchanging society that protests continue to draw people together and to question the status-quo.
Visit the Victoria Gallery inside State Library Victoria to see more of Ellis’ work in the exhibition Melbourne Out Loud: Life through the lens of Rennie Ellis.
Joy and independence in 1960s Mali.
Icon, Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
State Library Victoria Forecourt 328 Swanston St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24hrs
Theme Social Futures, Icons
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by Creative Victoria and Michael and Emily Tong
Legendary photographer Malick Sidibé captured the hopeful energy of his hometown of Bamako in the early years of Mali’s independence—a time when change was afoot and youth culture was flourishing.
Affectionately known as The Eye of Bamako, Sidibé had a professional photography studio for making portraits. Studio Malick produced formal and staged portraits that emanated such energy and spirit that they have become a way of seeing Malian culture of that time. Outside studio hours, Sidibé spent his nights travelling around town (often by bicycle), photographing dances and social clubs, translating the joy and social freedom of people shaking off the shackles of colonialism and mingling on the dance floor.
Malick Sidibé was a master at knowing when to frame a person so as to show us their essence. “It’s a world, someone’s face,” he said. “When I capture it, I see the future of the world.”
The photographer who took Melbourne’s portrait.
Icon, Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
State Library Victoria
Victoria Gallery, 328 Swanston St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01 March–28 January 2025
Exhibition Time Daily, 10am–6pm
Theme Social Futures, Icons
Curated by Angela Bailey with Jade Hadfield & Georgia Goud
With an uncanny ability to slip into all kinds of social circles, Rennie Ellis’ photographs are the ultimate story of life on the town.
He roamed St Kilda Beach, the MCG, Swanston Street and Sidney Myer Music Bowl; he met superstars from Tina Turner to Mick Jagger to Grace Jones; and he stood with crowds at the Melbourne Cup, the Grand Final, and the Boxing Day Test. He befriended people from all walks of life—athletes and celebrities, punks and protesters, beach-goers and party lovers. His images capture the lifestyles of Melburnians in the 70s and 80s in a way that no other photographer could.
Melbourne Out Loud is a collection of iconic, unseen and everyday photographs from one of our greatest chroniclers. It’s a celebration of going out, being seen and being yourself.
Memo Akten (TR)
Amrita Hepi (AU)
Sara Oscar (AU)
Max Pinckers (BE) &
J. Rosenbaum (AU)
Alan Warburton (GB)
How are new technologies shaping photography’s future?
Gallery Exhibition
Venue
RMIT Gallery 344 Swanston St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates 01 March–04 May
Exhibition Time Tue–Fri, 11am–5pm Sat, 12.30pm–5pm
Theme
Technological Futures
Curated by Alison Bennett, Shane Hulbert, Daniel Palmer & Katrina Sluis
Produced by RMIT Culture
Photography is constantly dying and being reborn. AI represents the latest stage of photography’s transformation into a software output, cannibalising the camera and even transforming it into a set of executable text prompts.
If we now think of photography as a kind of ‘program’, and that images are operational, actionable and scrapable, what does this mean for the future of the medium?
execute_photography is both an exploration and a provocation, featuring work by Australian and international artists speculating on the social and political ramifications of photography’s afterlives.
Constant change: a sharp lens on German history.
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
RMIT Gallery 344 Swanston St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates 01 March–20 April
Exhibition Time Tue–Fri, 11am–5pm Sat, 12.30pm–5pm
Theme Social Futures
Curated by Matthias Flügge
German photographer Ulrich Wüst’s work captures his wanderings through his nation’s history—from the social and urban transformations of the GDR and its disintegration, through the German reunification, to the present day. Wüst revives German history in a new, static way. The past and present clash in a dynamic and everchanging environment.
Wanderings About History shows a selection of photographs taken between 1978 and 2019. While the observations captured here are rooted in Germany’s division and its mending, at the same time they always relate the universal phenomena of social change and its material manifestations. The seemingly terse images, extremely precise in their composition, are the fruits of lengthy visual wanderings through present sites of recent history.
A city under the gaze of surveillance.
Venue
RMIT Design Hub Gallery
Level 2, Building 100, RMIT University, cnr Victoria St & Swanston St, Carlton
Exhibition Dates
01 March–27 April
Exhibition Time
Tue–Fri, 11am–5pm Sat, 12.30pm–5pm
Theme
Technological Futures
Curated by Helen Rayment
Mumbai-based collaborative studio CAMP, founded in 2007, create acclaimed works across video, film, digital media, and public art forms.
Surveillance and media both shape and reveal how we live in the world today. Bombay Tilts Down, 2022 is a seven-channel video using CCTV from a 35-floor building in South-Central Mumbai while the installation, A Photogenetic Line, 2019 uses carefully cropped photographs from the archives of The Hindu newspaper. CAMP interrogates the cycle and power of media sources. Their works turn our gaze to the ever-present cameras that surround us and the tension they produce.
Bombay Tilts Down was commissioned by The Nam June Paik Centre and Kochi-Muziris Biennale.
Priya Suresh Kambli (IN/US)
M. Palani Kumar (IN)
Hypnotic and subversive voices from South Asia. 27
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
Arts House
521 Queensberry St, North Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01 March–27 April
Exhibition Time
Mon–Fri, 10.30am–4.30pm Sat, 11am–4pm
Closed on Public Holidays
Theme
Social Futures
Curated by Vishal Kumaraswamy
Across two artist studios at Arts House, nireekshane – the act of seeing centres vernacular lens-based practices of traditional and innovative artists from South Asia and its diaspora.
This broad array of works brings forth forgotten and overlooked lived experiences and cultivates equity in photographic practices emerging from the margins.
Presented as an oeuvre of each artist’s practice, the surreal, hypnotic, and subversive techniques employed in the creation of photographic narratives become visible. The works draw parallels between the notions of purity in social hierarchies and within photographic approaches through themes of domesticity, belonging, and landscape.
Personal and communal histories are woven together as intimate exchanges occurring across time and geography and, in centering the act of seeing itself, the exhibition advocates for a comprehensive re-evaluation of what constitutes contemporary visual culture in South Asia.
Elisa Jane Carmichael (Ngugi/Quandamooka/AU)
Isadora Romero (EC)
Water is life.
Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere Venue
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by Creative Victoria and Jo Horgan and Peter Wetenhall
In With Water, three First Nations women from Australia, Bolivia, and Ecuador use photography to address the stories that sit close to them.
Elisa Jane Carmichael uses water in the process of making cyanotypes. Her newly commissioned work for PHOTO 2024 pictures coastal erosion and human intervention taking place in the Rainbow Channel located between Minjerribah and Mulgumpin (Moreton Island), Queensland, where the artist’s greatgrandmother was born.
Research-led documentary photographer, and winner of the Arles Discovery Award 2023, Isadora Romero explores the loss of ancestral memory, and the role that seed guardians like her great-grandparents play in combating inequality and conserving resources for future generations.
Finally, Bolivian artist Sara Wayra embodies the Andean tradition that sees water as the blood that gives life to Mother Earth, protects us, and links the cosmos, the world of the here and now, and the world below.
The invisible impacts of nuclear winds.
Outdoor Art, World Premiere
Venue
Parliament Gardens Spring St, East Melbourne
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by Creative Victoria and Creative New Zealand
Making visible the long-term impacts of nuclear testing, these photographs explore the impact of 50 years of nuclear weapons testing and militarisation across Moana-Oceania. The project’s title references a ‘downwinder’—a person or place exposed to radioactive materials released into the environment which can, quite literally, float downwind, contaminating bodies, lands, waters, and air.
These photographs were taken in Guåhan (Guam)—which is fighting for compensation for exposure to downwind radiation caused by US testing—and Tinian Island—which was the departure point for the planes that dropped the first, and only, nuclear weapons used in combat. They have been processed with the seawater containing trace residues of radiation that have effectively fogged the lightsensitive film. During the film development, chemiluminescence has also been added, which damages the film by fogging it in a process akin to how radiation resides in human DNA.
The energy, curiosity and dreams that shape the lives
Parliament of Victoria Spring St, East Melbourne
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Social Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Commissioned by PHOTO Australia and Parliament of Victoria
Supported by the City of Melbourne
Today/Tomorrow is a multimedia photography project made in collaboration with 16 young adults between the ages of 18 and 30, each of whom personally volunteered to be interviewed and then photographed with expired polaroid film. The interviews and portraits aim to voice and preserve their stories of diversity and resilience.
Today/Tomorrow marks the intersection of past, present and future, exploring with authenticity that which defines this pivotal stage in life. This exhibition is a celebration of the energy, curiosity and dreams that shape the lives of 18–30 year-olds, inviting viewers to connect with their shared experiences.
Image: Kenton/Davey, An, from the series Today/Tomorrow, 2023.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Tolarno Galleries
Level 5, 104 Exhibition St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01 March–20 April
Exhibition Time Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat, 1pm–4pm
Theme Environmental Futures
Combining sculptures and photographic images, Rosemary Laing’s powerful installation responds to the environmental crisis affecting the landscape of coastal New South Wales, which she has pictured in her large-scale scenes over many decades.
Re-assembling numerous small-scale broken and worn fragments from shells and rocks, Laing re-animates these remains of the natural world into ‘performers’ who react to their changing situation. Laing’s poignant and timely installation of re-imagined debris and close-up photographs considers the effects of climate change and speaks to the delicate balance between nature, culture and survival.
In a world of 24/7 surveillance, can we avoid detection by hiding in plain sight?
Outdoor Art, World Premiere Venue
99 Spring St, Gordon Reserve
Cnr Ulster Ln & Spring St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme
Technological Futures
Commissioned by PHOTO Australia
Supported by the City of Melbourne and Creative Victoria
99 Spring St installation supported by Peter Jopling
Newly commissioned for PHOTO 2024, Razzle Dazzle is a series of portraits of people trying to evade facial recognition technology... to varying degrees of success.
In World War One, Razzle Dazzle camouflage was an outlandish method used by Allied Forces to confuse enemy ships into mis-locating their fleet. Wild stripes and crazy geometric patterns were painted on the hulls of the boats so that they hid in plain sight. Jo Duck takes this ploy and adapts it to explore what privacy might mean in a not-so-distant future.
People born in the internet age have been tracked since birth. Everywhere we go we are recorded without consent and facial recognition technology is ubiquitous. With absurd problems come absurd solutions, whether in donning a teddybear decoy to confuse the cameras, fashioning a personal waterfall to obscure your face, or becoming the invisible woman, these portraits ponder the lengths that we might go to to retain our privacy.
Jo Duck, Brick Trick, from the series Disguises, 2022. Courtesy the artist.
Serwah Attafuah (AU)
Lauren Dunn (AU)
Boris Eldagsen (DE)
Giulio Di Sturco (IT)
Darren Sylvester (AU)
John Yuyi (TW)
Portraits of cyborgs and portraits by cyborgs.
Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Treasury Precinct
20 Spring St, East Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme
Technological Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Boris Eldagsen supported by the Goethe-Institut
Supported by Creative Victoria and Bruce Parncutt
The term Uncanny Valley refers to that sense of unease, wariness or revulsion that overcomes us when technology too closely resembles a human. The distinction between reality and simulation is blurring and, as the matrix folds in around us, this exhibition presents six artists addressing this changing landscape.
Lauren Dunn’s pixelated pop culture figures appear next to Giulio di Sturco’s portraits of Sophia, the first robot to be granted citizenship of a nation. Utilising “promptography”, Boris Eldagsen constructs false memories – sparking international debate on the distinction between photography and AI in the process.
John Yuyi invites questions over who controls our digital existence with faces covered with logos from popular apps, and Serwah Attafuah’s cyber dreamscapes and heavenly wastelands take us further into the metaverse, populated by afro-futuristic abstractions.
Darren Sylvester depicts a prophetic face looking back towards us, reflecting history repeating, and the futures of tomorrow.
Between technology and the natural
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
Sofitel Melbourne On Collins
25 Collins St, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01 March–30 April
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Presented in partnership with Sofitel Melbourne On Collins
Supported by Fini Frames
Using fiction and play, Chloé Milos Azzopardi seeks ways of imagining augmented lives, creating organic cyborgs whose aim would be to inscribe the body differently in the environment. How can we show an alternative future in the face of our dreams of a hyper-artificialised and technologised world?
Non Technological Devices are composite tools made from gleaned natural elements, assembled to mimic the technological devices that populate our daily lives. Somewhere between rudimentary objects and sciencefiction creations, these objects create a fictional universe that functions as a mirror held up to our fantasies of the future.
Non
Reimagining centuries-old ‘educational’ museum habitat displays.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
ARC ONE Gallery
45 Flinders Ln, Melbourne
Exhibition Dates
01 March–06 April
Exhibition Time
Wed–Sat, 11am–5pm or Tues by appointment
Theme Environmental Futures
Anne Zahalka has been working with photographic records of historical museum dioramas for many years. These educational ‘habitat displays’ from the 19th century presented pristine environments, frozen in time, communicating apparent ‘truths’ about the natural world and humanity. By disrupting this idealised space, Zahalka subverts the idea of fixed information to reimagine the changing relationship that exists between people and the natural world.
Future Past Present Tense is a new series, pushing her diorama-based compositions into exciting and ambitious forms. Zahalka adapts historical Australian dioramas via digital interventions, reimagining these original habitats. Instead of presenting a fixed historical truth, the artist forecasts other possible futures. Introducing some of the original creators, she digitally reconstructs these habitats to consider the impact of climate change and reflect on the permanent altering of the Australian environment in the age of the Anthropocene, with small windows of hope for the future.
Marta Bogdańska (PL)
Omar Victor Diop (SN)
Nikki Lam (AU/HK)
Tace Stevens (Noongar/Spinifex/AU)
Stephanie Syjuco (US)
Artists look towards the past to speculate future possibilities and consider change.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Centre for Contemporary Photography
404 George St, Fitzroy
Exhibition Dates
01 March–12 May
Exhibition Time Wed–Sun, 11am–5pm
Closed on Public Holidays
Theme Social Futures
Curated by Catlin Langford
It is well established that photography and film record the past, but these types of documents can also transform and dictate the future.
Only the future revisits the past brings together artists Marta Bogdańska, Omar Victor Diop, Nikki Lam, Tace Stevens and Stephanie Syjuco whose works look towards the past—via archives, institutional and museum collections, family histories, and historic depictions—to speculate future states and possibilities. Through deep engagement and considered intervention, these artists disrupt received structures and narratives. In doing so, they explore ideas of agency and the limitations of representation.
This exhibition questions the formulation of accepted knowledge and accounts, and asks: what role does memory and history play in forming our futures?
The daily work behind abortion.
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
FUTURES
21 Easey St, Collingwood
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time
Thu–Sat, 12–5pm or by appointment
Theme Social Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by Fini Frames
Wheelchair Access by appointment
The future of women’s rights over their bodies in the United States is not as clear as it seemed in 1973, when Roe v. Wade guaranteed federal right to an abortion up to foetal viability. With the overturning of this right in 2022, abortion has been banned, limited, or tested in 26 U.S. states and three territories—often without exemption for cases of sexual violence, incest, or threat to the life of the mother.
Reproductive rights are core values of feminism, and without them, there is no freedom. We are at a turning point in relation to these rights, and the future is far from certain.
Carmen Winant’s Notes for the last safe abortion reaches back over fifty years, drawing on a number of archives, as well as the artist’s own pictures as she works towards a photobook. These images look past the drama of the philosophical, religious or political aspects of the discussion around abortion, to recognise the daily labour it takes to keep clinics open.
Between race, ritual and nature.
Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Collingwood Yards
35 Johnston St, Collingwood
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme
Environmental Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Presented in partnership with Scotiabank CONTACT
Photography Festival, Toronto
Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
In Mnemonic Gestures, various racialised people enact ritualised gestures in conjunction with nature’s materials and cycles. These actions and movements are performed with the aim of developing an embodied language that tends to collective and personal grief and realigns disrupted cycles onto nature’s seasonal rhythm. Eve Tagny is a Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-based artist. Her practice considers gardens and disrupted landscapes as adaptable sites of personal and communal memory. The spaces that she works with are inherently inscribed with dynamics of power, colonial histories and their legacies. As a performer and image-maker, she explores spiritual and embodied expressions of grief and resiliency, in correlation with nature’s rhythms, cycles and materiality.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Arts Project Australia
Level 1 Perry Street Building, Collingwood Yards, 30 Perry St, Collingwood
Exhibition Dates
10 February–23 March
Exhibition Time
Wed–Fri, 11am–5pm Sat, 12pm–4pm Closed on Public Holidays
Theme Queer Futures
In The little things we fight for, Eden Menta explores the intersections of queerness and neurodiversity through ideas around a sense of self and place in the contemporary landscape.
Drawing from deeply personal experiences, Menta unpacks the past and contemplates the present, teasing out what it means to belong— or not, as the case may be. By addressing these realities, Menta fights for a future that recognises the intersectionality of different identities and fosters safe, inclusive spaces to feel valued and supported.
This exhibition addresses universal tensions and ideas through Menta’s intimate lens.
Using the Black gaze to challenge Black representation.
Venue
West Space
Level 1 Perry Street Building, Collingwood Yards, 30 Perry St, Collingwood
Exhibition Dates
01 March–04 May
Exhibition Time Wed–Sat, 11am–6pm
Theme Indigenous Futures
In his new work, wani toaishara responds to artist Jean Depara’s documentation of Kinshasa’s nightlife through film installation, blending past and present in a form of temporal collapse. It is an attempt at materialising Black life, love, and resilience as art forms in and of themselves, democratising access to the tools of freedom-making, and claiming necessary space in which to unpack liberation as both an independent and a collective act.
toaishara is a Congolese artist whose works span various mediums including photography, performance, installation and film. His practice explores Black life and representation, dislocation and Indigeneity as well as the effects of colonialism on Africa and its diaspora, often using his personal history to create intimate and personal works. The use of urban spaces in his films is significant in the way he transforms banal spaces into dramatic stages for exploration and reflection.
Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Otter St Park
Cnr Otter St & Smith St, Collingwood
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Social Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
On 1 August 2016, 118 migrants were rescued on the Mediterranean Sea. The packed boat was attempting the crossing from Libya to Italy. This was, of course, only a fraction of a much larger wave of human movement taking place. That year alone, over 300,000 refugees and migrants arrived in Europe, with 3,211 dying or going missing before completing their journey. Behind these numbers are the stories of individuals.
Passengers is a photographic project about the people aboard that boat in 2016, but rather than capturing a mass of indistinct faces on a crowded boat, César Dezfuli has made a portrait of each person aboard, and continued to connect with as many as possible over subsequent years, photographing the lives that they established after their journey by sea.
In a long-form approach, Dezfuli seeks to restore a sense of agency to these people and dignify their stories with the humanity of individuals.
Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
Get up close and personal with queer pop star Troye Sivan.
Gallery Exhibition, Festival Exclusive
Venue
PHOTO 2024 Festival Hub
6–10 Otter St, Collingwood
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time Wed–Sat, 11am-5pm
Theme Queer Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia Supported by Milieu
Known for his evocative, playful portrait photography, American artist and fashion photographer Ryan McGinley has borne witness to youth and subcultures from the 90s to now. His early photos displayed the unseen intersection of skateboard and graffiti culture from a queer perspective, and to this day he has an ongoing practice that includes photographing members of his creative community in New York.
In this exclusive exhibition for PHOTO 2024, McGinley teams up with local pop sensation Troye Sivan, two artists vocally championing LGBTQIA+ stories and activisms. Featuring photography originally shot for Hero Magazine, this exhibition is a cross-generational celebration of queer joy, including new images as yet unreleased from the series.
Ryan x Troye runs concurrently with the Australian Premiere of YEARBOOK (p. 140), McGinley’s epic photographic installation at Shepparton Art Museum for PHOTO 2024.
How can a photograph truly communicate ecological disaster?
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Gertrude Glasshouse
44 Glasshouse Rd, Collingwood
Exhibition Dates 01 March–06 April
Exhibition Time Thu–Sat, 12pm–5pm
Theme Environmental Futures
This new single-channel moving image work addresses experiences of ecological disquiet, and considers how image-saturated culture still struggles to capture intangible registers of scale.
Drawing on original and archival photographic records of a historical incident that occurred in northern Germany in the 1960s, The Flood collides this material with a series of seemingly disparate contemporary settings. Superimposing different sensory and cognitive registers over the historical record, Ruth Höflich’s work builds on the history of montage techniques in experimental filmmaking, where cadence, atmosphere, and form challenge the archival material, interrogating the act of image-making itself.
Queerness, camouflage and a camp look at ‘bro culture’.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Res Artis
Level 1, 44 Glasshouse Rd, Collingwood (Access via the rear of Gertrude Glasshouse)
Exhibition Dates 01–23 March
Exhibition Time Thu–Sat, 12pm–5pm
Theme
Queer Futures
Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
A “Blind Call” is a hunting term—an “imitation” or “call” used to lure a target into space. Capezio presents work that plays with notions of visibility, invisibility, and queerness through camouflage, investigating visual paradigms of ‘nature’ and environments of desire.
Employing experimental and camp processes that harness play, parody and exaggeration, Blind Call riffs on hunting, camouflage and bro culture to examine how humans “try to co-opt nature and their inherent failure to capture and dominate the landscape.” The resulting work considers new links between queer bodies and the ecologies that surround them.
Blind Call is presented as part of the inaugural Res Artis x PHOTO 2024 Residency collaboration.
Clouding our binary ideas of gender.
Gallery Exhibition
Venue
James Makin Gallery
89 Islington St, Collingwood
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time Thu–Sun, 12–5pm or by appointment
Theme
Social Futures
In Manifest Lisa Tomasetti reflects on gender identity and the role contemporary photography plays in the representation of the ‘female’ image.
In the past, the ephemeral nature of clouds defied scientific classification. Artists saw clouds as anti-structure, anti-order, and representative of the complexity of human mood or aspiration—as transports of gods and angels. Through the constancy and indifference of clouds, Tomasetti responds to historic, costumed representations of ‘authentic’ gender. The models’ historical costumes define them as hetero-normative, yet closer inspection reveals the costs of conformity and convention. The clothing and gender conventions they symbolise are restricting and restrictive. Depicted in the process of liberation from these constraints—ascendant, carried aloft by the clouds—Tomasetti’s subjects unravel in an un-grounded escape from the restrictions of gender-based impositions.
A photographic manifesto for a queer utopia.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere Venue
James Makin Gallery 89 Islington St, Collingwood
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Exhibition Time Thu–Sun, 12–5pm or by appointment
Theme
Queer Futures
Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
“From an early age, I would loudly and proudly declare that I wouldn’t see 30,” says artist J Davies. “That I would die young without any particular reasoning. As a 29 year old who spends a lot of time inside my own mind, I’ve come to realise that when I was young I had no visual examples of my future, no lives I was aspiring to live, no role models I was aspiring to be like. I wasn’t exposed to any form of adult queer persons who were not demeaned and degraded for their ‘lifestyle’ choices. I wasn’t exposed to any celebrations of queer family, or trans joy.”
In Case We Don’t Live Forever is a photographic archive of these lives—a celebration of resilience, survival and joy. With a carpe diem/live fast die young mentality, this selection of images presents as a queer utopia—a future for us to work towards, to protect.
Reinterpreting Australian kitsch.
Gallery Exhibition
Venue
Sullivan + Strumpf
107–109 Rupert St, Collingwood
Exhibition Dates
29 February–23 March
Exhibition Time
Tue–Sat, 10am–5pm
Theme Indigenous Futures
Tony Albert’s iconic Ashtray series are deeply poignant works drawing on both personal and collective histories. Premiering Ashtralia (2023) alongside works from previous series shown together for the first time, this exhibition offers viewers an opportunity to engage with and interrogate Tony’s ongoing interest in the visual language and symbolism found in ashtrays.
For these photographic works Albert has assembled found vintage ashtrays which are decorated with kitsch images of Aboriginal people and culture. The act of stubbing out cigarettes on the faces of Aboriginal men, women and children symbolises Australia’s colonial history and speaks to ongoing race relations in contemporary Australian society.
Albert’s reactivation of ‘Aboriginalia’ offers audiences critical engagement with these objects. Albert’s work simultaneously presents confronting issues and embodies the spirit of positivity in the face of adversity. How do we remember, give justice to, and rewrite traumatic histories? And how can we learn from the past to shape a better future?
The fallout of Australian colonialism.
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
THIS IS NO FANTASY 108–110 Gertrude St, Fitzroy
Exhibition Dates 29 February–23 March
Exhibition Time Tue–Fri, 11am–5pm Sat, 12pm–5pm
Theme Indigenous Futures
Fitzroy/Collingwood Precinct
Coinciding with Scarce’s mammoth survey exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and following the extraordinary response to her work at the 2023 Armory Show in New York, Scarce’s exhibition at THIS IS NO FANTASY showcases her photographic, textile, and glass works.
Scarce reflects on her personal and family history in South Australia, as well as touching on Australia’s foray into nuclear testing, and the impacts of colonisation on First Nations people – illuminating her desire to bring the darkest shadows of Australia’s past into the direct light of day.
Artists look to understand and shape the future.
Outdoor Art, Festival Exclusive Venue
Abbotsford Convent (outdoors)
1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24hrs
Theme Social Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Presented in the grounds of the historic Abbotsford Convent are three projects conceived as photobooks that look to the future.
Rahim Fortune’s I can’t stand to see you cry is an exploration of Texas and the surrounding states, and a study of family, friends and strangers. Winner of the Arles Discovery Award 2022, Fortune attempts to unpack his own identity and experience in the midst of a pandemic, civil unrest, a cross-country move, a career, and the loss of a parent, reflecting on both the future and past.
The Well was set into motion after Sarah Walker visited a psychic who prophesied photographs Walker was taking, naming particular scenarios—a black dog, the moon, the sea, a strange woman—making the series appear predestined.
And Ayman Kaake’s 99 Names—the title referencing the names of Allah or God revealed to humanity in the Qu’ran—is an unapologetic celebration of queer voices that looks to a hopeful future in the face of homosexuality still being a crime in at least 74 countries.
A collaborative exhibition of child-led photographic artworks.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
The Store
Abbotsford Convent
1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time
Tue–Fri, 10am–2pm
Sat–Sun & Public Holidays, 10am–4pm
Theme
Social Futures
Work In Progress is commissioned by Abbotsford Convent and is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and the City of Yarra.
Work in Progress is a collaborative exhibition between artist and curator Kate Golding and the children of Naarm/Melbourne.
Featuring works created by children using a variety of photographic processes, Work In Progress will continue to grow throughout the festival as more and more people of all ages contribute to this thought-provoking and uplifting exhibition.
Throughout the exhibition, there will be enriching opportunities for creative and handson engagement, as well as special events and celebrations with artists and audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Work In Progress is the first children-led exhibition in PHOTO.
Where do we draw the line between working with nature and dominating nature?
Australian Premiere, Gallery Exhibition
Venue
St Heliers Street Gallery
Abbotsford Convent
1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Exhibition Time Wed–Sat, 9am–11pm Sun, 3pm–9pm
Theme
Technological Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by Fini Frames
Mastering the Elements considers the scientific exploration and eventual conquest of nature –from the beginnings of alchemy to the present day. In their pursuit to turn basemetals into gold, alchemists always strove for a transdisciplinary understanding of nature’s inner workings. But the Age of Enlightenment saw a transition towards natural sciences that ultimately sought dominance over nature’s bounty. By combining philosophy and photography, these images take a visual journey through topics that have captivated researchers throughout history, from traditional medicine and classical concepts of matter, to biogerontology (the science of ageing) and quantum physics. Juxtaposing the alchemical approach with modern scientific practice exposes various issues associated with today’s prevailing understanding of nature, and invites questions about how scientific understandings might advance in the future.
Melding the bygone and the cutting-edge of photographic techniques.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Animal House Fine Arts
Level 1, 2A Brunswick Rd, Brunswick East
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time Fri–Sat, 12–5pm
Theme
Technological Futures
Continuing his ongoing investigation of the evolution of photography as an agential force in the world, Trent Crawford utilises experimental forms of darkroom photography, including an obsolete photographic method that harnesses electricity to reveal the energy or emotional state of its subjects.
When placed alongside moving image LCD screen interventions, this melding of old and new reveals a turbulent narrative— photography is revealed as a catalyst for past and future speculation.
An artist charts our shrinking attention spans.
Venue
Daine Singer
83 Weston St, Brunswick
Exhibition Dates 01–23 March
Exhibition Time Wed–Fri, 12pm–5pm Sat, 12pm–4pm
Theme Social Futures
In this exhibition and an accompanying photographic slide show and artist talk, Benjamin Prabowo Sexton presents a narrated catalogue of found and created images that reflect on the decline in average human attention span in an image saturated world.
To complement the selection of new photographic works—unique silver gelatin prints combining painting and documentary photography with language—Sexton’s slide show and artist talk will juxtapose verbal and visual communication, interweaving personal anecdotes and observations. The work explores the gaps that can occur between their form and content, intention and effect.
Non-linear and conversational in form, the presentation will invite reflections on how we pay attention to images and the ephemeral conditions that can shift how we experience them.
Teva Cosic (AU)
Kyle Archie Knight (Wiradjuri/AU)
Pearce Leal (AU)
Nicholas Mahady (AU)
Erhan Tirli (TR/AU)
Six new names in photography show us the future of the artform.
Gallery Exhibition, Festival Exclusive
Venue
Daine Singer
83 Weston St, Brunswick
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Hours
Wed–Fri, 12pm–5pm Sat, 12pm–4pm
Curated by Catlin Langford
Presented by PHOTO Australia
Supported by Naomi Milgrom Foundation
Framing supported by Fini Frames
Printing supported by Print Shop @PSC
Paper supported by CANSON
New Photographers returns for PHOTO 2024, showcasing work by Victoria’s most inspiring emerging photographers. This exhibition brings together six artists exploring concepts of construct, contrast, community, and the self. Their works are united by a unique approach to their subjects, ranging from humour to the surreal, and technique, including staging, assemblage and collage.
Kyle Archie Knight’s ongoing series Cruising for a Bruising is at once a poignant and humorous reflection on his experience growing up queer in in the outer suburbs of Naarm (Melbourne). Cecilia Sordi Campos pushes the boundaries of photography to examine ideas of womanhood, identity and the body, while Erhan Tirli combines a documentary and staged approach to explore long-term ethnography of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.
Teva Cosic’s work draws on personal and cultural narratives around family, history, tradition, and mythology to consider ideas of stability in the face of uncertain futures. Mixing documentary practices and found imagery, Pearce Leal explores the interrelationships between humans and fragile ecologies, and Nicholas Mahady’s work focuses on the relationship between atmosphere and image, and representing the unrepresentable.
Maree Clarke (Yorta Yorta/Wamba Wamba/Mutti Mutti/Boonwurrung)
Gough (Trawlwoolway)
Peta Clancy (Bangerang)
Jody Haines (Palawa)
Breaking through centuries of concrete to rediscover the stories that flow beneath.
Gallery Exhibition, Outdoor Art, World Premiere
57
Venue
Counihan Gallery, 233 Sydney Rd, Brunswick
Exhibition Dates
03 February–28 April
Time
Wed to Sat, 11am to 5pm Sun, 1pm to 5pm
58 Venue
Brunswick Mechanics Institute Forecourt, 270 Sydney Rd & Brunswick Town Hall Forecourt, 233 Sydney Rd, Brunswick
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Time 24hrs
Theme Indigenous Futures
Curated by Kimba Thompson
Presented in partnership with Blak Dot Gallery
Underneath each building or stretch of asphalt there are deep layers of meaning and history. Beneath the concrete there are countless stories not memorialized. Future River: When the past flows examines the Indigenous understanding that cities are obfuscations of what is—that monuments conceal the past.
Under our cities, the rivers and creeks still flow, and with them the Indigenous narratives of the past that will naturally become future rivers. Though we may try to cage and redirect the flow of water using concrete, the waterways will inevitably run their own course.
This exhibition re-images and rememorialises what lies beneath the concrete slab—thousands of years of story and life obscured. This exhibition draws attention to the role of the city as a besiegement, and how, through artistic intervention, we can allow the past to flow into the future once more.
Jody Haines’ works are located offsite from Counihan Gallery outdoors at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute forecourt and the Brunswick Town Hall forecourt.
Mapping the intertwined natures of self and Country.
Gallery Exhibition
Venue
Hillvale Gallery
43–45 Edward St, Brunswick
Exhibition Dates 01–24 March
Exhibition Time
Mon–Fri, 11am–4pm Sat (02 March only), 11–4pm Sun, 11am–3pm
Theme Indigenous Futures
Australia has a complex history tainted with colonialism, the mass genocide of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and forced assimilation into the settler colony. The many products of colonialism are still prevalent and thriving today.
(Dis)connected to Country maps the intersections of place, identity, and family, and the way that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have inextricable connection to the land, as Country and self are intertwined and inseparable. Working with oral histories, the project reflects on Australia’s traumatic history, focusing on Pitta Pitta Country and the removal of Romanis’ great-grandmother during the Stolen Generations.
By disrupting and subverting colonial approaches to image-making and mapping systems, Romanis highlights the omission of significant Indigenous Knowledges. The work critically analyses archive, representation, and new technology, grappling with the idea of photographic agency. This is a project of revival, healing and mapping back to Country.
Enter the high-gloss, hyper-real worlds of Darren Sylvester.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Neon Parc
15 Tinning St, Brunswick
Exhibition Dates 01 March–06 April
Exhibition Time Wed–Sat, 12–5pm
Theme
Social Futures
Artist Darren Sylvester’s meticulously staged, hyper-real works investigate the dichotomy between high and low culture.
Sylvester’s practice combines staged photography, sculpture and installation, with each piece the result of detailed research and planning. Sylvester’s work questions the tension between authenticity and desire within highgloss consumer culture, by incorporating popcultural references that are hinted to, but just out of reach.
In The Doom Buggies, Sylvester builds a series of elaborate, choreographed ‘dream’ stages, which reflect and refract a state of mind rather than place or narrative. This feeling, as if being in a pop-music video, is simultaneously personable and detached, connected and disconnected, aware yet unaware.
Amid awe-inspiring landscapes, witness the scale of mining in the Hunter Valley.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Museum of Australian Photography
860 Ferntree Gully Rd, Wheelers Hill
Exhibition Dates
01 March–26 May
Exhibition Time
Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by Angela Connor
Supported by The Albert and Barbara Tucker Foundation
Presented in partnership with PHOTO Australia
Over the last forty years, Canadian artist Edward Burtynsky has photographed landscapes all over the world, documenting how human systems and industry are reshaping our planet. Through photographs of urbanisation, deforestation, and mining extractions, Burtynsky’s images are simultaneously sublime and terrifying, chronicling the insatiable demand for finite resources from a rapidly accelerating population. In 2022, Burtynsky photographed Ravensworth Mine in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, an open cut mine producing coal for export. Presented through ten large-format photographs, these aerial images show the scale of active industry and seduce the viewer via sensual patterns and topography. The photographs provide vantages for discussion of the future of the environment. Whether the landscapes are seen as an environmental disaster or human progress, these works bear witness to the changing planet.
Intimate glimpses into the fragility and power of our ecosystem.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Museum of Australian Photography 860 Ferntree Gully Rd, Wheelers Hill
Exhibition Dates 01 March–26 May
Exhibition Time Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by Anouska Phizacklea
Supported by The Albert and Barbara Tucker Foundation, the Luminaries and the MAPh Foundation
Janet Laurence’s immersive, multi-sensory installation Tears of Dust reflects upon the fragility and power of the natural environment. Her intensely seductive and yet haunting evocations of the natural environment create encounters with our changing planet.
In this world premiere show, these wunderkammers (cabinets of curiosity) provide windows into our fragile ecosystem—of breathing forests, extreme weather events and dying glaciers—and offer a sense of connection with and, mourning of, our vanishing life world.
When encountering these familiar and yet otherworldly environments, we become profoundly aware of the interconnection of all life forms and the alchemical wonder of plants’ ability to regenerate.
Defiance and community in the face of destruction and industry.
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
Museum of Australian Photography 860 Ferntree Gully Rd, Wheelers Hill
Exhibition Dates 01 March–26 May
Exhibition Time Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
Theme
Environmental Futures
Curated by Angela Connor and Agency, in consultation with Marrawuddi Arts & Culture
Supported by The Albert and Barbara Tucker Foundation
In 1982, the township of Jabiru was established around a uranium mining site, intended to house the mine’s workers—without the consensus of the Traditional Owners.
This exhibition features works by Mirarr Traditional Owner and visual artist Corben Mudjandi. The photographs capture his perspectives on Mirarr Country and his own community, displayed alongside images of the former uranium mining site at Jabiru.
The poetry and beauty of Corben’s works stand in contrast with the history concealed behind them. The images he offers address the dichotomy that exists between the impact of modern industries on the environment, and the resilience of Indigenous people in fostering values such as kinship, connection to Country and culture.
Deteriorating images capture the fragility of our slowly-receding icescapes.
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
Museum of Australian Photography 860 Ferntree Gully Rd, Wheelers Hill
Exhibition Dates 01 March–26 May
Exhibition Time
Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by Angela Connor
Supported by The Albert and Barbara Tucker Foundation
Melting icescapes are one of the most visual indicators of global warming. As humans continue extractive and consumerist industries, our behaviours permanently impact the landscape, resulting in significant ecological impact—leaving an ineradicable ‘human signature’.
Melting Icescapes/Black Landscapes is a response to the glacial melt driven by climate change. Using the alternative photographic processes of salt printing, Lingam.K captures the impending ecological collapse and encourages reflection on our relationship and impact on the landscape. The project visually articulates the passing of time through the fading of the salt print and the impacts of climate change on glacial landscapes.
An artist explores the sculptural possibilities of the photographic medium.
Venue
Museum of Australian Photography
860 Ferntree Gully Rd, Wheelers Hill
Exhibition Dates 01 March–26 May
Exhibition Time Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by Anouska Phizacklea
Supported by The Albert and Barbara Tucker Foundation
In this site-specific installation across MAPh’s sculpture park, Sonia Payes embraces the sculptural possibilities of the photographic medium. Payes’ interpretation of possible futures examines the impact of human intervention on the planet.
These otherworldly and yet familiar landscapes may seem apocalyptic but they illustrate Payes’ unwavering faith in our species’ capacity to adjust and persevere. As individuals and as a collective human race, she believes we must consistently adapt to the everchanging nature of our planet’s environment. The complexity of Payes’ imagery captures the planet’s ongoing process of transformation, offering poetic insights into humanity’s aspirations for the future of our environment, including those futures already determined.
Michael Cook (Bidjara/AU)
Eliza Hutchison (AU/ZA)
Tim Johnson (AU)
Raquel Ormella (AU)
When radical action and critical thinking converge.
Gallery Exhibition
Venue
MADA Gallery
Monash University, Building D, Caulfield Campus 900 Dandenong Rd, Caulfield East
Exhibition Dates
01–23 March
Exhibition Time
Wed–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat, 12–5pm
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by Dr Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris
Stemming from a climate-aware curatorial choice by Dr Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris, the works in HELLLO I NEED A CAT are selected from the Monash University Collection featuring artists Michael Cook, George EgertonWarburton, Eliza Hutchison, Tim Johnson and Raquel Ormella. As opposed to commissioning resource-intensive new works, this exhibition delves into the extensive collection to look anew at the university as a site for pedagogy, experimentation and protest.
A thread of protest runs through the selected artworks, highlighting the radical potential of higher education and the university as a place where critical thinking unfolds— Michael Cook creates photographic reimagings of Australia as an Indigenous majority state, and Eliza Hutchison’s photo-collages depict climate protests in a glitchy post-digital age. Taking its enigmatic title from text embedded within Hutchison’s artwork, HELLLO I NEED A CAT takes an expansive understanding of photography and shares aesthetic renderings of protest and artistic re-imaginings of society.
Jacqueline Felstead (AU)
Ponch Hawkes (AU)
Jodie Hutchinson (AU)
Paula Mahoney (AU)
Kirsty Macafee (AU)
Hedy Ritterman (AU)
Julie Shiels (AU)
Virginia Stobart (AU)
Claudia Terstappen (AU/DE)
Linda Wachtel (AU)
Dianna Wells (AU)
Eleven artists ask how our actions will impact our collective future.
67
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
Glen Eira City Council Gallery
Cnr Glen Eira and Hawthorn Rd, Caulfield
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time
Mon–Fri, 10am–5pm
Sat–Sun, 1–5pm
Closed on Public Holidays
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by Diane Soumilas
Presented by The Contemporary Collective (TCC)
In Edge of Elsewhere, eleven established photographers intersect through the thematic strands of environmental and social futures, considering potential scenarios and the impact of our actions. These artists are united by shared concerns around the global climate catastrophe, the Anthropocene, environmental degradation and the social implications. Their work raises awareness of the urgency to find solutions and address the fate of the world.
This exhibition forms a nuanced conversation around how changing societal and environmental ideologies will impact us now and in the future. Edge of Elsewhere interweaves these perspectives into a powerful meditation on how we envision our existence in the future, within the context of a rapidly changing world.
Jill Orr expands on her work about migration, colonialism, and the climate crisis.
Gallery Exhibition
Venue
Linden New Art
26 Acland St, St Kilda
Exhibition Dates
23 February–19 May
Exhibition Time
Tue–Sun, 11am–4pm
Closed on Public Holidays
Theme Environmental Futures
Jill Orr’s The Promised Land Refigured builds on Orr’s previous Promised Land project, created in 2012, with new insights that have emerged in the past eleven years. The original series centred around a slot-together, life-size, skeletal boat that does not float. Performed in sites around St Kilda, including Station and Princes Piers, sites of migrant arrival, and along the Yarra River, the entry point for colonial expansion, The Promised Land ruminated on the diverse history and impact of those arriving on these shores by boat.
This new series, a sculptural and photographic installation, explores a new wave of movement by sea. Framed by the impact of Australia’s policy of turning back asylum seekers who arrive by boat, The Promised Land Refigured engages with the anticipated issue of global homelessness, due to the outcomes of mass destruction of homes and environments resulting from climate change.
Explore distorted fragments of modern Chinese history through the eyes of one of its long-term witnesses.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
MARS Gallery
7 James St, Windsor
Exhibition Dates
01–30 March
Exhibition Time Tue–Sat, 10am–4pm
Closed on Public Holidays
Theme Social Futures
Many events have been erased in modern Chinese history, and the truth is hidden within a web of distorted narratives. In Dignity of Remembering, Xiao Lu presents fragments of history as she has experienced them to ensure they are not forgotten, and the dignity of history is upheld. Amid historical upheavals, the opportunity to participate in and witness political events, protests, and violence firsthand has imbued in the artist a feeling that life is not just about mere survival.
This exhibition includes photographs and videos captured in Beijing and Hong Kong, as well as documentation of the artist’s Hong Kong performance Skew, amidst debris and rubble on the gallery floor. Visitors are invited to experience a sense of situational resonance through the perspective of legendary artist Xiao Lu.
Meet the black women building community through skateboarding.
Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Prahran Skate Park
261 Malvern Rd, South Yarra
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time 24hrs
Theme Social Futures
Curated by PHOTO Australia
Supported by the City of Stonnington
A community built by Black women in skateboarding in South Africa is the focus of this series of images. This community is tightknit, engendering strength through shared vulnerability and a passion for building each other up through skating.
Karabo Mooki looks to race, gender, sexuality and class through his photography, seeking to reveal an authentic and honest side to life in South Africa, with a focus on underrepresented faces. Skating has traditionally been a male-dominated sport, underscoring the importance of women in this series who are actively advocating for increased representation within skateboarding. They aim to enhance the portrayal of Black identity, promote equality in sports, and foster inclusion to cultivate sites of empowerment.
Re-imagining sites of clairvoyance and hope.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Sophie Gannon Gallery
2 Albert St, Richmond
Exhibition Dates
01–24 March
Exhibition Time Tue–Sat, 11am–5pm
Theme Social Futures
Supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland
Psychic Visions examines the way people attempt to make sense of reality, chaos, restriction and things unseen. Throughout Covid, once-busy streets were isolated, businesses closed, and shopfronts were boarded up. However, within the chaos, the collective psyche of society was apparent in the urban landscape— there remained a utopian glimmer of hope.
Artist Anna Carey explores this polarisation through images of slightly decayed, isolated psychic shops. With their mystical names and bright lights, these stores offer a fantasy and freedom to imagine a new reality. The escapism is heightened by inserting the artist’s own real life phone number into the seductive new-age neon signage, inviting viewers to escape with her into a fantasy world.
Featuring a selection of new images exhibited for the first time, Carey’s works demonstrate that within every utopia there is an element of dystopia. In unprecedented times, with a shifting collective conscious and existential concern, Anna Carey reminds us that the future is unknown.
The fashion runway becomes a game of exquisite corpse.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
LON Gallery
136a Bridge Rd, Richmond
Exhibition Dates
28 February–23 March
Exhibition Time
Wed–Sat, 12pm–5pm
Theme
Technological Futures
The surrealist game ‘exquisite corpse’ is a collaborative one in which a number of participants draw a segment of a whole without seeing anyone else’s contribution. This largescale photographic installation reimagines the game through the lens of fashion photography, weaving together found photographs, internet images, painting, and drawing to create new mythologies—from fashion photography to twentieth century surrealist illustration.
Soft Bodies challenges historical notions, unveils hidden narratives, and offers a fresh perspective on the beauty and diversity of the human form.
Rômy Pacquing McCoy (PH/AT), Luce Nguyên-Hunt (VN/Sāmoa/Rarotonga)
Dorcas Tang 邓佳颖 (MY/AU), Estelle Yoon (KR/AU)
Queer PHOTO, Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Trocadero Projects
Level 1/40 Leeds St, Footscray
Exhibition Dates
27 January–24 March
Exhibition Time Wed–Sat, 12pm–5pm
Theme
Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition presented by Trocadero Projects Supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund
Trocadero Projects presents an exhibition of new and experimental photographic work and related writing from four emerging artists. In SURFACING, these artists challenge the traditions of the photographic medium as they explore and extend personal and community archives through a queer and diasporic lens. Korean-Australian artist Estelle Yoon pursues the philosophy of wabi-sabi, searching for and expressing simplicity and transience, through analogue photography and filmmaking. Vietnamese, Samoan and Rarotongan artist Luce Nguyên-Hunt uses digitally manipulated moving image, photography, poetics and sound to examine their place at the intersection of cultural history, queerness and observed intergenerational ties. Ilocano-Visayan and Austrian artist Rômy Pacquing McCoy draws on ancestral practices of art making through their encounters with found and inherited materials, and Chinese-Malaysian artist Dorcas Tang 邓 佳颖 creates critical dialogue through socially engaged visual narratives that explore the transnational Chinese diaspora.
Playing at the intersection of AI and drag.
Queer PHOTO, Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Footscray Community Arts (Outdoors)
45 Moreland St, Footscray
Exhibition Dates
27 January–24 March
Exhibition Time
24 hrs
Theme
Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition curated by Brendan McCleary
Presented by Midsumma and PHOTO Australia
Supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund
The Zizi Show is part of an ongoing collection of works exploring the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and drag performance.
Drag challenges gender and explores otherness, while AI, often mystified as a concept and tool, is complicit in reproducing social bias. Zizi combines these themes through a deepfake, synthesised drag identity created using machine learning. The project explores what AI can teach us about drag, and what drag can teach us about AI.
Searching for poetry and narrative in the success and failures of AI systems, Jake Elwes’ practice makes use of the sophistication of machine learning, while finding illuminating qualities in its limitations. Elwes seeks to queer datasets, demystifying and subverting predominantly cisgender and straight AI systems.
Articulations of identity from a queer Fijian woman with settler-colonial heritage living in Australia.
Queer PHOTO, Outdoor Art, Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Exhibition Dates
03 February–26 May
75 (Indoor)
Venue
Roslyn Smorgon Gallery
Footscray Community Arts
45 Moreland St, Footscray
Exhibition Time
Tue–Fri, 9.30am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
76 (Outdoor)
Venue
Riverside Lawn
Footscray Community Arts
45 Moreland St, Footscray
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition. Outdoor artwork supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund.
The exhibition title Exquisite Corpse refers not only to the collaborative drawing game popularised by the surrealists (who in turn, appropriated Oceanic objects and ideas), but also to the cumulative migrant experience in post-colonial Australia.
This mashup of experiences is collaged together to understand inherited and enduring legacies. Reflecting on her experiences as a person from two different colonies (Australia and Fiji), Salote Tawale uses Indigenous knowledge systems as a foundational basis for inquiry. Tawale invites points of human connection, using physical objects to tether images to the real world. A combination of components signify different natural and made objects, each contributing their own tonal vibration within the space.
This exhibition will also be extended outdoors onto the Footscray Community Arts Riverside Lawn.
(Dipped in Black)
A spiritual return to Country, and to storytelling.
Queer PHOTO, Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Henderson House, Footscray Community Arts
45 Moreland St, Footscray
Exhibition Dates
03 February–26 May
Exhibition Time Tue–Fri, 9.30am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
Theme
Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition curated by Brendan McCleary
Presented by Midsumma and PHOTO Australia
Supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund
Supported by Fini Frames
This autobiographical work follows queer Yankunytjatjara man Derik Lynch’s road trip back to Country for spiritual healing as memories from his childhood return—memories of his childhood, of growing up in remote Anangu Community, and of learning Tjukurpa. This photographic series follows his journey from the oppression of white city life in Adelaide, back home to his remote Anangu Community Aputula to perform on sacred Inma ground. Inma is a traditional form of storytelling using the visual, verbal, and physical—it is how Anangu Tjukurpa (story connected to country / dreaming / myth / lore) have been passed down over 60,000+ years from generation to generation.
Through Derik’s unique and significant journey, the series celebrates a life lived across four cultural worlds: the whitefella world, the blackfella world, the Christian world, and the Queer world.
Tender portraits of queer Black intimacy.
Queer PHOTO, Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
Henderson House, Footscray Community Arts
45 Moreland St, Footscray
Exhibition Dates 03 February–26 May
Exhibition Time Tue–Fri, 9.30am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
Theme
Queer Futures
Please note that this exhibition contains nudity.
A Queer PHOTO exhibition curated by Brendan McCleary
Supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund
Supported by Fini Frames
Self-taught US artist Clifford Prince King documents his intimate relationships in traditional, everyday settings that speak to his experiences as a queer Black man. Orange Grove is a series of dark and handsome images, filled with King’s intricate portraits that flow like tapestries. King makes the everyday transparent while embracing possible futures, through a sense of fantasy and daydream. Woven into the narrative is King’s 2018 HIV diagnosis, and the subsequent shifts in the body that illness brings. As King describes, “The work I make is the work I wish I had seen growing up, to make my process and my understanding easier. That links back to the faces being hidden in some images. I think it allows for people to put themselves in that photograph.”
Through a warm lens, King tenderly captures the beauty of companionship and self-realisation. These images offer a sense of community – as we witness lovers and friends in the ether of vulnerability, King’s portraits remind the viewer that sex and intimacy are intrinsically a collaboration.
Foregrounding Black queer identity.
Venue
Footscray Community Arts (Outdoors)
45 Moreland St, Footscray
Exhibition Dates
27 January–24 March
Exhibition Time
24 hrs
Theme Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition curated by Brendan McCleary Commissioned by Midsumma and PHOTO Australia
Supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund
Through this series featuring portraits of migrant and Indigenous Black individuals, artist Lilah Benetti recognises that Blackness is far from a monolithic identity; it’s a mosaic of cultural, ethnic, and global Indigenous backgrounds, shaped and coloured by the unique contexts from which we emerge.
Ethnographic research suggests that prior to Europeans claiming dominance in so-called Australia, there was little evidence of rigid binary constructs in Indigenous histories precolonisation. While many Western societies claim the reputation of being pioneers and forward-thinkers when it comes to gender identity, Indigenous cultures across the world have a long rich history of gender nonconformity and queerness that was erased by the ongoing brutality of colonisation.
“I believe when our Blackness and Queerness intersect, the possibilities are endless, bound only by the ways in which we choose to represent ourselves—and our ideas of what it means to be self-determinant,” says Benetti.
Trans and queer identities flourish in the Amazon.
Queer PHOTO, Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Footscray Wharf, Footscray Community Arts (Outdoors)
45 Moreland St, Footscray
Exhibition Dates
27 January–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition curated by Brendan McCleary
Presented by Midsumma and PHOTO Australia
Supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund
Made in collaboration with Casa do Rio, a community-based organisation that celebrates and supports the cultural lives of teenagers and young people living in the Amazon Rainforest, these portrait photographs by Daniel Jack Lyons visualise and empower this trans and queer community.
Lyons’ portraits explore how deep Indigenous traditions and modern identity politics meet in a celebratory and safe space, deep in the lush canopies and vegetation. Using a collaborative and participatory approach, these images celebrate the perennial comingof-age impulses to express and affirm one’s individuality; and how young people remain resilient against a toxic mix of environmental degradation, violence, and discrimination rife in the Amazon.
A decade of groundbreaking work from queer Polynesian artist collective FAFSWAG.
Queer PHOTO, Gallery Exhibition, Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
81 Venue
Footscray Community Arts (Outdoors)
45 Moreland St, Footscray
Exhibition Dates
27 January–24 March
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
82 Venue
The Substation
1 Market St, Newport
Exhibition Dates
27 January–23 March
Exhibition Time
Wed–Sat, 12pm–6pm
Theme
Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition presented by The Substation, Midsumma and PHOTO Australia
Supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund
Meeting at the intersections of cultural archival practices, digital technology and queer Indigenous storytelling, Alteration presents a glimpse into the shapeshifting practice of FAFSWAG, an Aotearoa-based queer Polynesian arts collective.
Compiling a decade of artistic output, with two years of co-design, co-curation, research and production, this show presents a mixed media archival exhibition of significant works from the collective from 2013 to now.
Contemplating ancestry and legacy, reclaiming stolen narratives, speculating fictional futures, and redefining the cultural image of queer Pacific bodies living on stolen land, Alteration seeks to break down predictable, fixed colonial narratives.
Alteration is FAFSWAG’s landmark Australian show created by Jermaine Dean, Falencie Filipo, Tanu Gago, Tapuaki Helu, Elyssia Wilson Heti, Nahora Ioane, Hōhua Ropate Kurene, Moe Laga-Toleafoa, Ilalia Loau, Tim Swann, Pati Solomona Tyrell and James Waititi.
(To Be Who We Want To Be)
Celebrating Ukraine’s queer community.
Venue
The Substation Billboard Gallery
1 Market St, Newport Works are also viewable along the the Werribee and Williamstown line
Exhibition Dates
27 January–24 March
Exhibition Time
24 hrs
Theme
Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition curated by Brendan McCleary
Presented by Midsumma, PHOTO Australia and The Substation as part of Queer PHOTO
Supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund
After decades of Soviet forbiddance and suppression, the queer scene in Ukraine has sprouted from the underground. Artist Vic Bakin captures images of this emerging community during the Russian invasion.
“While still being marginalized by the society brought up in Soviet times, the Ukrainian queer scene, little by little, obtains its own unique voice, different from others,” says Bakin. “I personally feel obliged to give this voice a visual form, one of many.”
“The message is simple: each person deserves the right for self-identification, the right to be who we want to be. Quiet but brave at the same time, we, these people, are facing another round of oppression coming from the same cancerous imperialistic entity. However, it’s already clear that the new generation will be the one who will change our country for the better. I admire these beautiful people.”
A love letter to and from queer Pasifika diaspora communities.
PHOTO, Outdoor Art
Venue
The Outside Gallery
2 Market St, Newport
Exhibition Dates
27 January–1 July
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition presented by Midsumma, PHOTO
Australia in partnership with Hobsons Bay City Council.
Supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund
So’otaga (Connection) explores belonging, community, and connection in Melbourne’s Pasifika & Māori diaspora.
Derived from Fuimaono’s seven-year catalogue and featuring new works, this exhibition reflects on the intricate web of diaspora connections, particularly the potential for both intimacy and alienation within intersecting micro-communities. Contemplating the delicate yet enduring strength of these bonds, the series serves as a love letter both to and from the artist’s extended LGBTQIA+ Pasifika & Māori community. Viewers are invited to reflect on their own deeply personal experiences of ‘community’, ‘belonging,’ and cultural identity.
Remixing the old alongside the new.
Queer PHOTO, Outdoor Art, World Premiere
Venue
Werribee Train Station Station Place, Werribee
Exhibition Dates
27 January–31 December
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition Presented by Wyndham City Council
Also on display at Wyndham Art Gallery, a Project Hub features more work by Sunil Gupta, Karla Dickens, Asafe Ghalib and Peter Waples-Crowe as part of Queer PHOTO.
Located within the architecture of Station Place, Peter Waples-Crowe’s site-based exhibition Affirm sits in the expansive window-based architrave and entrance to the subterranean hub of the Station. The artist has worked with his image-based archive—itself incorporating new and found imagery—moulded as raw material, often subverting the imagery’s original intents and purposes.
Waples-Crowe remixes the old alongside new elements, constructing and weaving various narratives, affirming his identity and exploring related concerns of his practice. These are largely based on the artist’s personal experiences influenced by his adoption and reconnection with his Ngarigo heritage, and over 25 years’ experience as a community health worker within Aboriginal and LGBTQIA2+ health.
This exhibition presents scenes at once familiar to the ‘Australian’ vernacular yet subjected to Waples-Crowe’s unique subjective lens and collage-like methodologies.
Nineteenth century English aesthetics meet contemporary Indian queer culture.
Queer PHOTO, Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
Wyndham Art Gallery
177 Watton St, Werribee
Exhibition Dates
27 January–14 April
Exhibition Time Mon–Fri, 9am–4.30pm Sat–Sun, 11am–4pm
Theme
Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition Presented by Wyndham City Council
Also on display at Wyndham Art Gallery, a Project Hub features more work by Sunil Gupta, Karla Dickens, Asafe Ghalib and Peter Waples-Crowe as part of Queer PHOTO.
Presented in partnership with Autograph London, The New Pre-Raphaelites is a series of thirteen photographs merging Victorian era aesthetics with contemporary Indian queer culture. The series portrays individuals and families affected by Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalised homosexuality. This law, instituted by the British in 1861 and not overturned until 2018, led to the arbitrary arrest and exploitation of LGBTQ+ Indians.
Taking as their starting point the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, a collective of nineteenthcentury English artists and reformists, these staged photographic works recreate the vivid colours and strong physical presence of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, bringing them into the twenty-first century, updated to reflect contemporary queer culture in India.
Playful yet confronting self-portraits masking oppression and identity.
Queer PHOTO, Outdoor Art
Venue
Werribee Park Mansion
Gate 2, K Rd, Werribee South
Exhibition Dates 27 January–24 March
Exhibition Time Daily, 10am–5pm
Theme
Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition Presented by Wyndham City Council
Also on display at Wyndham Art Gallery, a Project Hub features more work by Sunil Gupta, Karla Dickens, Asafe Ghalib and Peter Waples-Crowe as part of Queer PHOTO.
Wiradjuri woman Karla Dickens brings a black humour to her interrogation of subjects such as race, gender and injustice, revealing her often raw pain along the way.
In this exhibition, Dickens’ studio selfportraits depict the artist in hoods with varying designs, acting as a reminder of the masking and oppression of recent Aboriginal experience.
“I’m not a politician; I’m an artist, a storyteller,” says Dickens. “With my art, I talk about my personal experiences. I don’t set out to make political statements. I am political simply because I am who I am–a single mother, a lesbian, a First Australian.”
Intimate, bold portraits that aim to empower the queer community.
Queer PHOTO, Outdoor Art, Australian Premiere
Venue
Werribee Park Mansion Gate 2, K Rd, Werribee South
Exhibition Dates
27 January–24 March
Exhibition Time Daily, 10am–5pm
Theme Queer Futures
A Queer PHOTO exhibition curated by Brendan McCleary Presented by Midsumma and PHOTO Australia
Supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund
Also
Asafe Ghalib photographs individuals in the LGBTQIA+ community, including friends and fellow artists. Working mostly in black-andwhite and sepia photography, Ghalib’s images recall newspaper and historical photographs both from old books and magazines as well as traditional family photos—a type of portraiture that has been present since the invention of photography.
In embracing these parameters, the artist aims to confront societal expectations and stereotypes, building a powerful platform for the queer community to reclaim agency, as well as inspiring others to question the status quo.
“I mostly photograph individuals by themselves in order to allow their personality to emerge in full bloom,” says Ghalib. “I want to communicate the person’s ideas in their rawest, most beautiful and empowered form.”
Local students celebrate the power of imagination and world building.
Outdoor Art, World Premiere
Venue
Paine Reserve
Mason St, Newport
Exhibition Dates
27 January–24 March
Exhibition Time
24 hrs
Theme Social Futures
Commissioned by Midsumma and PHOTO Australia
Supported by Creative Victoria through the Victorian Government’s Go West Fund
Presented in partnership with Hobsons Bay City Council
Explore an outdoor installation of alter-ego portraits created by students from Greentree Acting Studio with Persian artist Sammaneh Pourshafighi.
With a background in photography, collage and performance, Pourshafighi guided participants over a series of participatory handson workshops experimenting and developing their own alter ego. Using a selection of props, art materials, make up, and wigs, participants were encouraged to express their larger than life alter egos culminating in the collaborative production of their own photographic portraits. This playful series of large-scale photos celebrates the power of imagination and world building available to us all.
Embracing the high and low of camp.
Venue
Art Gallery of Ballarat
40 Lydiard St North, Ballarat
Exhibition Dates
23 February–05 May
Exhibition Time 24 hrs
Theme Social Futures
Curated by Julie McLaren
Driven by the thrill of camp, So’s work explores the often-contradictory relationship between humour and sincerity within lived experience, offering a glimpse of a future society that embraces difference.
At the heart of So’s show is a new video work, in which So pays tribute to the Begonia Queens, a fixture of Ballarat’s Begonia Festival from 1953 to 1993. And in the Australian premiere of his Hai Kot Tou series, So is photographed posing in counterfeit high-fashion brands, echoing the head-to-toe monogram trend of the new money in Asia.
Legendary photographer Nan Goldin captures intimacy and pain in the New York underground. Celebrating an icon of photography.
Icon, Gallery Exhibition
Venue
Art Gallery of Ballarat 40 Lydiard St North, Ballarat
Exhibition Dates
02 March–02 June
Exhibition Time Daily, 10am–5pm
Theme Social Futures, Icons
Please note this exhibition is not suitable for children under the age of 15.
Curated by Anne O’Hehir
A National Gallery of Australia Touring Exhibition
American artist Nan Goldin explores subculture, moments of intimacy, the impacts of the HIV/ AIDS and opioid epidemics on her communities, and photography as a tool for social activism. Goldin’s work is always born out of her own experience—her deeply personal and candid portraiture acts as a visual autobiography. Born in Washington DC, Goldin moved to New York City in 1978, where she began to photograph the post-punk new-wave scene, along with the city’s vibrant, post-Stonewall queer communities.
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, which began life as a slide show and was published as a now-iconic book in 1986, established Goldin as a major contemporary artist. A long-standing social activist, Goldin is the subject of the recent, award-winning documentary film All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, which considers the relationship between her photographic practice and her activism.
The beauty of Central Victoria’s landscape in tumult and recovery.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Castlemaine Art Museum
14 Lyttleton St, Castlemaine
Exhibition Dates
08 February–16 June
Exhibition Time Thu–Sat, 11am–4pm Sun, 12pm–4pm
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by Jenny Long
Julie Millowick is a localist in the best sense of the word, an artist who is deeply embedded in the place where she lives. Over many years, Millowick has documented the environmental legacy of goldmining around her home near Fryerstown in Central Victoria. This strangely poignant landscape has been turned upside down through violent extraction—but it remains resilient and in the process of recovery.
Surrounding exhibits a curation of Millowick’s significant body of work including a new series seen for the first time. Millowick’s photographs show us the devastating effects of mining, drought, flood and invasive plants, but also remind us of the interconnectedness that links all parts of this ecosystem including its human occupants. This is a terrain which the artist loves, and which she sees with acute perception. It is a landscape full of complexity, a region with a terrible past, but in its capacity for renewal is also a place that offers a spark of hope for the future.
Ryan McGinley’s first major solo exhibition in Australia.
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
Shepparton Art Museum 530 Wyndham St, Shepparton
Exhibition Dates 01 March–14 July
Exhibition Time
Mon–Fri, 10am–4pm
Sat–Sun, 10am–5pm Closed Tuesdays
Theme
Social Futures
Please note this exhibition contains nudity
Presented in partnership with PHOTO Australia
Shepparton Art Museum presents American artist Ryan McGinley’s first major solo exhibition in Australia.
YEARBOOK is a large-scale, ever-evolving artwork consisting of over five hundred studio portraits of musicians, artists, and creatives living and working in New York. First presented in 2008, YEARBOOK is a celebration of the diversity of the human body, depicting nude figures of every body-type.
Each individual image is a unique portrait, granting the viewer access to a delicate, onceprivate moment between the photographer and sitter. The candy-coloured prints, recalling fashion or rock band promotional posters, envelop the visitor, flooding the entire space with bold colour and form.
Through photography and AI, young Victorians are propelled into 2073.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Benalla Art Gallery
Benalla Botanical Gardens, Bridge St, Benalla
Exhibition Dates 01 March–05 May
Exhibition Time Wed–Mon, 10am–4.30pm
Theme Technological Futures
Supported by MARS Gallery and Colour Factory
+50 explores the perspectives and aspirations of young people from diverse backgrounds in Benalla and Melbourne. Artist Scotty So invites participants to share their thoughts on how they and the world will change in the next 50 years. This exhibition offers a platform for young voices to be heard, encouraging reflection on the changing world and our place in it, as well as on ageing and the impact of time on our lives. With the help of AI processing, each of the young participants is presented in large-scale portraits imagining them in their old age. Through So’s use of AI technologies, we consider how we utilise these currently, and to what degree can we depend on their accuracy in the future?
Enter the dystopian world of corporate videos.
Gallery Exhibition
Venue
Benalla Art Gallery
Benalla Botanical Gardens, Bridge St, Benalla
Exhibition Dates 23 February–28 April
Exhibition Time Wed–Mon, 10am–4.30pm
Theme
Technological Futures
Presented in partnership with PHOTO Australia
Supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body
New Futures™ brings together two darkly humorous video artworks assembled and edited entirely from corporate video stock footage sourced on the internet, each exploring themes of duplicity, neoliberalism and the climate crisis. In Radical Acts, a group of climate scientists clandestinely distribute a pathogen that renders corporate workers less productive and more accepting of motivations beyond profit. And in New Futures™, a biohacking initiative wages war between the industrious and hyper-charismatic ‘synthetic’ personalities and disgruntled hackers, nostalgic for an apathetic past.
Andy Johnson (AU)
Anne Moffat (AU)
Clare Steele (AU)
A photographic collaboration with the people and landscapes of the Latrobe Valley, Gunai/Kurnai Country.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Latrobe Regional Gallery
138 Commercial Rd, Morwell
Exhibition Dates
01 March–23 June
Exhibition Time Daily, 10am–4pm
Theme Environmental Futures
Curated by Hillvale and David Ashley Kerr
The Valley presents a body of work captured by four artists who have developed their photographic practices closely with local Melbourne gallery and photo lab Hillvale— James Bugg, Anne Moffat, Clare Steele and Hillvale Photo co-founder, Andy Johnson. At the invitation of Latrobe Regional Gallery, they visited the Latrobe Valley in Gunai/Kurnai Country, Gippsland, Victoria over a six-month period. They were introduced to the community and the people and places that inhabit this rugged landscape made up of heavy industry and pastoralism.
This image-making project is also an ongoing collaboration, as the photographers lead a series of workshops using Hillvale Photo’s recycled disposables, starting with local young people from Kurnai College’s Flexible Learning Option, and continuing over the Autumn season, with participants’ work displayed alongside the artists.
In the Himalayas, natural and built landscapes collide.
Gallery Exhibition, World Premiere
Venue
Latrobe Regional Gallery 138 Commercial Rd, Morwell
Exhibition Dates 01 March–23 June
Exhibition Time Daily, 10am–4pm
Theme Environmental Futures
A world premiere by acclaimed Welsh artist Gareth Phillips, Interstates of Becoming is about the relationship between human beings and their shared environments, specifically in the Himalayan mountains of Northwest India. Wild environments and human constructions grapple for superiority and control in a landscape of concrete, steel, immense rockfaces and mountainscapes. With this unique and fragile landscape as a focal point, this constructed photobook sculpture and large-scale installation depicts the direct and indirect effects humans and mountains have on one another in their interdependent life-spans.
Exploring Ukraine, before and after invasion, through the lens of an image-making duo.
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere Venue
Latrobe Regional Gallery
138 Commercial Rd, Morwell
Exhibition Dates
12 February–26 May
Exhibition Time Daily, 10am–4pm
Theme
Social Futures
Curated by David Ashley Kerr
Kyiv-based artists and filmmakers Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk have been collaborating at the boundaries of visual art and cinema since 2013. Their work engages with imperialist mythologies, youth, nostalgia and Soviet legacies. This exhibition is a brief survey of the duo’s work to date.
Selected Works features the film Dedicated to the Youth of the World II (2019) documenting Cxema, the biggest techno-rave in Ukraine. This acclaimed work is made even more poignant today when faced with the uncertain fate of the youth in this video, produced prior to the fullscale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The exhibition also features the new work Explosions Near the Museum (2023), produced from the war zone in the liberated city of Kherson, in a museum looted by Russian occupational forces less than two kilometres from Russian-occupied territory.
Explore one artist’s experience of motherhood—biologically, psychologically and socially.
Gallery Exhibition
Venue
Latrobe Regional Gallery 138 Commercial Rd, Morwell
Exhibition Dates 12 February–26 May
Exhibition Time Daily, 10am–4pm
Theme Social Futures
A Centre for Contemporary Photography touring exhibition
The beginning of matrescence (the process of becoming a mother) begins as a kind of black magic curiosity—movement under the skin, growing and forming at will, the hurricane of birth, the electricity of the letdown.
The Quickening explores the transformation and lived experience of a woman in her motherhood/matrescence and postpartum depression/anxiety. The work interrogates the under-represented transition of biological, psychological and social identity during a complex and yet ubiquitous phase of life. The Quickening traverses the sudden landslide of one woman’s known world and the subsequent moving through rubble as devastated and in love, she tries to make sense of what is left, and ends with a slow rebuild of the new territory of becoming a mother.
Making dramatic cuts to extremist manifestos.
Gallery Exhibition, Australian Premiere
Venue
Latrobe Regional Gallery 138 Commercial Rd, Morwell
Exhibition Dates 12 February–26 May
Exhibition Time Daily, 10am–4pm
Theme Social Futures
Presented in partnership with PHOTO Australia
Working collectively as MacDonaldStrand, Clare Strand and Gordon MacDonald make work in response to photographic history, politics and practice.
No More Flags is an ongoing project made up of photographs of extreme right-wing marches in the UK and USA. In each image, the flags have been crudely removed from the images to withdraw the asserted legitimacy of these marches as being for the benefit of national identity. By taking the flags away from these nationalists, MacDonaldStrand remove the symbols that they rely on to spread their message. The resulting images show remarkably similar protagonists marching with blank flags, raising questions about the type of society we want to be promoting and striving for.
24 execute_photography
Memo Akten , Amrita Hepi, Rosa Menkman, Sara Oscar, Max Pinckers & Dries Depoorter, J. Rosenbaum, Sebastian Schmieg, Alan Warburton RMIT Gallery
Tue–Fri, 11am–5pm Sat, 12.30pm–5pm
25 Wanderings About History
Ulrich Wüst RMIT Gallery
23 Melbourne Out Loud: Life through the lens of Rennie Ellis
Rennie Ellis
State Library Victoria Daily, 10am–6pm
Tue–Fri, 11am–5pm Sat, 12.30pm–5pm 26 Haunted by Sirens and Poets CAMP RMIT Design Hub Gallery
Tue–Fri, 11am–5pm Sat, 12.30pm–5pm
27 nireekshane – the act of seeing Priya Suresh Kambli, M. Palani Kumar, Sadia Marium, Arun Vijai Mathavan, Jaisingh Nageswaran, Krithika Sriram Arts House Mon–Fri, 10.30am–4.30pm Sat, 11am–4pm Closed on Public Holidays
28 With Water Elisa Jane Carmichael, Isadora
Gardens 29 Blowing in the wind
of Victoria 31 blu-tac and bandages
Rosemary Laing
Tolarno Galleries
Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat, 1pm–4pm
32 Razzle Dazzle
Jo Duck
99 Spring St, Gordon Reserve
33 Uncanny Valley: Photography, Tech and the Hyperreal
Serwah Attafuah, Lauren Dunn, Boris Eldagsen, Giulio Di Sturco, Darren Sylvester, John Yuyi
Treasury Precinct
34 Non Technological Devices
Chloé Milos Azzopardi
Sofitel Melbourne On Collins
35 Future Past Present Tense
Anne Zahalka
ARC ONE Gallery
Wed–Sat, 11am–5pm or Tue by appointment
St
Only the future revisits the past
Marta Bogdańska, Omar Victor Diop, Nikki Lam, Tace Stevens, Stephanie Syjuco Centre for Contemporary Photography
11am–5pm
47 Ashtralia Tony Albert Sullivan + Strumpf Tue–Sat, 10am–5pm
48 Shroud of Secrecy Yhonnie Scarce THIS IS NO FANTASY
Tue–Fri, 11am–5pm Sat, 12pm–5pm
49 I can’t stand to see you cry Rahim Fortune
Abbotsford Convent (outdoors) 50 The Well Sarah Walker
Abbotsford Convent (outdoors)
51 99 Names Ayman Kaake
Abbotsford Convent (outdoors)
52 Work In Progress
Kate Golding with child artists from Naarm The Store
Abbotsford Convent
Tue–Fri, 10am–2pm Sat–Sun & Public Holidays, 10am–4pm
53 Mastering the Elements
Jana Hartmann
St Heliers Street Gallery
Abbotsford Convent
Wed–Sat, 9am–11pm Sun, 3pm–9pm
54 A collective lens with an individual attitude
Trent Crawford
Animal House Fine Arts
Fri–Sat, 12–5pm
55 A Timeless Watch
Benjamin Prabowo Sexton
Daine Singer
Wed–Fri, 12pm–5pm Sat, 12pm–4pm
56 New Photographers
Cecilia Sordi Campos, Teva Cosic, Kyle Archie Knight, Pearce Leal, Nicholas Mahady, Erhan Tirli
Daine Singer
Wed–Fri, 12pm–5pm Sat, 12pm–4pm
57 Future River: When the past flows
Maree Clarke, Julie Gough, Peta
Clancy Counihan Gallery
Wed–Sat, 11am–5pm Sun, 1pm–5pm
58 Future River: When the past flows
Jody Haines
Brunswick Mechanics Institute
Forecourt, Brunswick Town Hall Forecourt
59 (Dis)connected to Country Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis Hillvale Gallery
Mon–Fri, 11am–4pm Sat (02 March only), 11–4pm Sun, 11am–3pm
60 The Doom Buggies
Darren Sylvester
Neon Parc
Wed–Sat, 12–5pm
61 Extraction
Edward Burtynsky
Museum of Australian Photography
Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
62 Tears of Dust
Janet Laurence Museum of Australian Photography
Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
63 009
Corben Mudjandi Museum of Australian Photography
Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
64 Melting Icescapes/Black Landscapes
Lingam.K Museum of Australian Photography
Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
65 Renaissance: A Journey of Transformation
Sonia Payes
Museum of Australian Photography
Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
66 HELLLO I NEED A CAT
Michael Cook, George EgertonWarburton, Eliza Hutchison, Tim Johnson, Raquel Ormella MADA Gallery
Wed–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat, 12–5pm
67 Edge of Elsewhere
Jacqueline Felstead, Ponch Hawkes, Jodie Hutchinson, Paula Mahoney, Kirsty Macafee, Hedy Ritterman, Julie Shiels, Virginia Stobart, Claudia Terstappen, Linda Wachtel, Dianna Wells
Glen Eira City Council Gallery
Mon–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat–Sun, 1–5pm Closed on Public Holidays
68 The Promised Land Refigured
Jill Orr
Linden New Art
Tue–Sun, 11am–4pm Closed on Public Holidays
69 Dignity of Remembering 记忆的尊严
Xiao Lu 肖鲁
MARS Gallery
Tue–Sat, 10am–4pm Closed on Public Holidays
70 AMANDLA
Karabo Mooki Prahran Skate Park
71 Psychic Visions
Anna Carey
Sophie Gannon Gallery Tue–Sat, 11am–5pm
72 Soft Bodies
Grace Wood
LON Gallery
Wed–Sat, 12pm–5pm
North ↑ Outdoor Art Gallery Exhibition T Train Station Landmark
73 SURFACING
Rômy Pacquing McCoy, Luce Nguyên-Hunt, Dorcas Tang
邓佳颖, Estelle Yoon
Trocadero Projects
Wed–Sat, 12pm–5pm
74 The Zizi Show
Jake Elwes
Footscray Community Arts (Outdoors)
Exquisite Corpse (Indoor)
75
76
Salote Tawale
Footscray Community Arts
Tue–Fri, 9.30am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
Exquisite Corpse (Outdoor)
Salote Tawale
Footscray Community Arts
77 Marungka Tjalatjunu (Dipped in Black)
Derik Lynch & Matthew Thorne
Footscray Community Arts
Tue–Fri, 9.30am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
78 Orange Grove
Clifford Prince King
Footscray Community Arts
Tue–Fri, 9.30am–5pm Sat–Sun, 10am–4pm
79 Black and Blur
Lilah Benetti
Footscray Community Arts (Outdoors)
80 Like A River
Daniel Jack Lyons Footscray Community Arts (Outdoors) 81 Alteration (Outdoors)
(Indoors) FAFSWAG
The Substation Wed–Sat, 12pm–6pm 83 TBWWWTB (To Be Who We Want To Be)
Vic Bakin
The Substation Billboard Gallery
84 So’otaga (Connection)
Leilani Fuimaono
The Outside Gallery
85 Affirm
Peter Waples-Crowe Werribee Train Station
86 The New Pre-Raphaelites
Sunil Gupta Wyndham Art Gallery
Mon–Fri, 9am–4.30pm Sat–Sun, 11am–4pm
87 To See or Not to See Karla Dickens Werribee Park Mansion Daily, 10am–5pm
88 Queer Immigrants
Asafe Ghalib Werribee Park Mansion Daily, 10am–5pm
89 Create Your Own Alter Ego Sammaneh Pourshafighi Paine Reserve
90 Hai Kot Tou
Scotty So
Art Gallery of Ballarat
91 The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
Nan Goldin
Art Gallery of Ballarat Daily, 10am–5pm
92 Surrounding
Julie Millowick
Castlemaine Art Museum
Thu–Sat, 11am–4pm Sun, 12pm–4pm
93 YEARBOOK
Ryan McGinley
Shepparton Art Museum
Mon–Fri, 10am–4pm Sat–Sun, 10am–5pm Closed Tuesdays
94 +50
Scotty So
Benalla Art Gallery
Wed–Mon, 10am–4.30pm
95 New Futures™
Laresa Kosloff
Benalla Art Gallery
Wed–Mon, 10am–4.30pm
96 The Valley
James Bugg, Andy Johnson, Anne Moffat, Clare Steele
Latrobe Regional Gallery Daily, 10am–4pm
97 Interstates of Becoming
Gareth Phillips
Latrobe Regional Gallery Daily, 10am–4pm
98 Selected Works Yarema & Himey
Latrobe Regional Gallery Daily, 10am–4pm
99 The Quickening
Ying Ang
Latrobe Regional Gallery Daily, 10am–4pm
100 No More Flags
MacDonaldStrand
Latrobe Regional Gallery Daily, 10am–4pm
PHOTO Australia is a non-profit organisation championing Australian photographic arts. As producer of PHOTO 2024, we create a focused moment of scale and visibility to celebrate photography and the incredible cultural sector here in Melbourne and Victoria.
Board
Mark Henry (Chair)
Bill Bowness AO
Penny Miles
Naomi Milgrom AC
Elias Redstone
Melinda Rich
Team
Founder / Artistic Director: Elias Redstone
Executive Director: Clare McKenzie
Curator: Brendan McCleary
Associate Curator: Pippa Milne
Events Producer: Briony Bennett
International Partnerships Manager: Jessica O’Brien
Communications & Marketing Manager: Sean Barrett
Marketing Coordinator: Jennifer Ma
Administrator: Sabina McKenna
Copywriter: Will Cox
Design: U-P
Publicity: AMPR
Bookkeeper: Renee Hoy
Curatorial Advisors
Mariama Attah
Daniel Boetker-Smith
Léuli Eshrāghi
Lucy Gallun
Clare Grafik
Varun Gupta
Shaune Lakin
Alona Pardo
Isobel Parker Philip
Sophia Sambono
Susan Van Wyk
Photobook Weekend Co-curators
Matt Dunne
Angus Scott
Rohan Hutchison
PHOTO Editions
Thank you to Justine Ellis, Dan Rule and Ziga Testen
Interns
Tom Craft
Chloe Guymer
Marshall Wilson
Selena Wenen Xiao
We wish to extend a huge thank you to everyone who has supported PHOTO 2024 including Colin Brooks MP and Steven Dimopoulos MP; Lord Mayor
Sally Capp, Councillors Jamal Hakim and Rohan Leppert, John Cunningham and Jo Mair at City of Melbourne; Claire Febey, Sam Strong and team at Creative Victoria; Elaine Chia at Naomi Milgrom Foundation; Natasha Bowness and Leonie Boxtel at Bowness Family Foundation; Katrina Sedgwick, Sarah Tutton and Mary Parker at Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation; Miffy Innes, Thuy Thach, Rebecca Norris and Lyndall Willis; and Sebastian Coles.
Thank you to our incredible exhibition and program partners, donors, sponsors, advisors, and all our volunteers.
Above all, a massive thank you to all the participating artists and their respective galleries.
We would like to sincerely thank our patrons for their generous support. PHOTO 2024 was only made possible through the commitment of our visionary philanthropists.
Bill Bowness AO
Mark Henry
Naomi Milgrom AC Heroes $40,000+
Jo Horgan and Peter Wetenhall
Visionaries $20,000+
Helen and Michael Gannon
Bruce Parncutt AO
Michael and Emily Tong
Champions $10,000+
John Anselmi
Morena Buffon and Santo Cilauro
Peter Jopling AM QC
Benefactors
The Calvert-Jones Foundation
Milton and Penny Harris
Ricci Swart
Contemporaries
Ying Ang
Atong Atem
Alicia Linley
Honey Long
Prue Stent
Jen Zielinska and Alexis Kalagas
$5,000+
$1,000+
Our latest photobook is now available.
$49
Commissioned by PHOTO Australia
Published by PHOTO Australia and Perimeter Editions
Designed by Ziga Testen
Supported by Jo Horgan and Peter Wetenhall
photo.org.au/photo-editions
Drinking From The Eye is the first photobook by Australian artists Honey Long and Prue Stent, and the third in the PHOTO Editions series, co-published by PHOTO Australia and Perimeter Editions. The publication takes the form of an abstracted visual diary, presenting a combination of constructed photographs and detail shots that emphasise the artists’ attention to form, texture and material. The body is ever-present throughout Drinking From The Eye, whether literally through a performative interaction, or appearing figuratively in the leaking eye of a rock pool, the plush lips of a sea creature or the tingling tentacles of a sea anemone. Often referencing historical representations of the female subject, Long and Stent distort and fragment their bodies, creating creaturely hybrids in a constant state of becoming and flux. Dreamlike, fluid, saccharine, gritty and fleshy, they challenge and captivate audiences with powerful imagery that is both subversive and surreal.
We are excited to start planning for our next festival in 2026 and we would love to hear from you.
Keep an eye out for our Open Call for PHOTO 2026’s outdoor artworks and other opportunities to participate. Sign up for email updates at photo.org.au/subscribe to be the first to know.
PHOTO is only possible thanks to our generous supporters. From patrons to enthusiasts, there are plenty of ways to show your support at all levels of giving. Tax-deductible donations directly support new artwork commissions, artist development, and education programs. Donate towards PHOTO 2026 and support the future of Australian photography! Get in touch or visit photo.org.au/support for more info.
The festival is a collaboration with cultural, industry, government and corporate partners. Contact us if you are interested in supporting PHOTO Australia to build a major free festival that brings contemporary art to the streets and galleries of Melbourne and regional cities. Email our Executive Director Clare McKenzie clare@photo.org.au to start the conversation.
From working with Australian artists overseas to welcoming international visiting curators at PHOTO 2026, ask us about ways we can collaborate with your organisation. Contact our International Partnerships Manager Jessica O’Brien jessica@photo.org.au.
Adam Ferguson
Alan Warburton
Amos Gebhardt
Amrita Hepi
Andy Johnson
Angela Tiatia
Anna Carey
Anne Moffat
Anne Zahalka
Arun Vijai Mathavan
Asafe Ghalib
Autumn Royal
Ayman Kaake
Benjamin Prabowo Sexton
Bixiao Zhang
Boris Eldagsen
CAMP
Cao Fei
Carmen Winant
Caroline Garcia
Cecilia Sordi Campos
César Dezfuli
Chloé Milos Azzopardi
Clare Steele
Claudia Terstappen
Clifford Prince King
Corben Mudjandi
Daniel Jack Lyons
Darren Sylvester
David Charles Collins
Debra Phillips
Derik Lynch
Dianna Wells
Dorcas Tang
Eden Menta
Edward Burtynsky
Elisa Jane Carmichael
Eliza Hutchison
Emily Simek
Erhan Tırlı
Estelle Yoon
Eve Tagny FAFSWAG
filip custic
Fiona Amundsen
Francesca Pili
Gareth Phillips
George
Egerton-Warburton
Giulio Di Sturco
Grace Wood
Hedy Ritterman
Honey Long & Prue Stent
Indra Liusuari
Isabella Capezio
Isadora Romero
J Davies
J. Rosenbaum
Jacqueline Felstead
Jahkarli Felicitas
Romanis
Jaisingh Nageswaran
Jake Elwes
James Bugg
Jana Hartmann
Janet Laurence
Jemima Wyman
Jill Orr
Jo Duck
Jodie Hutchinson
Jody Haines
John Yuyi
Joseph Blair
Joy Zhou
Julie Gough
Julie Millowick
Julie Shiels
Karabo Mooki
Karla Dickens
Kate Golding with child artists from Naarm
Kaya and Blank
Kenton/Davey
Kirsty Macafee
Krithika Sriram
Kyle Archie Knight
Laresa Kosloff
Lauren Dunn
Leela Schauble
Leilani Fuimaono
Lilah Benetti
Linda Wachtel
Lingam.K
Lisa Tomasetti
Liu Di
Luce Nguyên-Hunt
M. Palani Kumar
MacDonaldStrand
Malick Sidibé
Maree Clarke
Marta Bogdańska
Matthew Thorne
Max Pinckers & Dries Depoorter
Memo Akten
Michael Cook
Michael Najjar
Mous Lamrabat
Nan Goldin
Nicholas Mahady
Nikki Lam
Noémie Goudal
Omar Victor Diop
Paula Mahoney
Pearce Leal
Peta Clancy
Peter Waples-Crowe
Ponch Hawkes
Priya Suresh Kambli
Rahim Fortune
Raquel Ormella
Rennie Ellis
Rômy Pacquing McCoy
Rosa Menkman
Rosemary Laing
Rozalind Drummond
Ruth Höflich
Ryan McGinley
Sadia Marium
Salote Tawale
Sammaneh Pourshafighi
Sara Oscar
Sara Wayra
Sarah Walker
Scotty So
Sebastian Schmieg
Serwah Attafuah
Sonia Payes
Stephanie Syjuco
Sunil Gupta
Tace Stevens
Teva Cosic
Tim Johnson
Tony Albert
Trent Crawford
Ulrich Wüst
Vic Bakin
Virginia Stobart
wani toaishara
Warsan Mohammed
Xiao Hui Wang
Xiao Lu 肖鲁
Yarema & Himey
Yhonnie Scarce
Ying Ang
Zoë Croggon