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ACTIVATING THE CITY
CELEBRATING DIVERSE VOICES
We are committed to making our activities inclusive and celebrating diversity in our programming, personnel and audiences, including supporting First Nations, LGBTQIA+ and diaspora communities. We believe in providing equal opportunities regardless of race, colour, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, age or disability.
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HAYLEY MILLAR BAKER I Will Survive
We are extremely proud to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and artists. Across the festival, 12 First Nations artists and/or collectives were presented, including prominent commissions by Photo Australia for Gunditjmara artist Hayley Millar Baker and Wiradjuri/Celtic artist Brook Andrew.
Whilst we are proud of our achievements, we aim to increase our engagement and support for First Nations artists for PHOTO 2022 and beyond. Supporting not just through presenting artwork, but through mentoring and direct engagement with community. To do so, we have formed a First Nations Advisory Committee.
Hayley Millar Baker, 2020. Commissioned by Photo Australia for PHOTO 2021. Supported by State Library Victoria and the City of Melbourne Arts Grants Program. Photo by J Forsyth. BROOK ANDREW (Wiradjuri/Celtic) SMASH IT Prahran Square PETA CLANCY (Bangerang) Undercurrent Bendigo Art Gallery MAREE CLARKE (Yorta Yorta/Wamba Wamba/Mutti Mutti/Boonwurrung) Uncle Jack Charles (Men in Mourning) Metro Tunnel Creative Program
MICHAEL COOK (Bidjara) Undiscovered THIS IS NO FANTASY DESTINY DEACON (Kuku/Erub/Mer) DESTINY National Gallery of Victoria ROBERT FIELDING Routes / Roots Linden New Art
GROUP EXHIBITION Affirmation Koorie Heritage Trust STEVEN RHALL (Taungurung) River Red Arbour Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria DAMIEN SHEN A Stone from Another Mountain Benalla Art Gallery
The Guardian
Queer voices were central to PHOTO 2021, both through artists and staffing. This was displayed prominently in Carlton’s Argyle Square, with large scale installations of visual activist Zanele Muholi (coincinding with a major survey show of Muholi’s practice at Tate Modern, London).
Muholi uses photography to assert the rights of black, lesbian, gay, trans, queer and intersex communities. Dissecting issues of race, sexuality, and gender, Muholi’s work asks critical questions about social justice, human rights, and representation.
LGBTQIA+ voices were also prominent in the survey of Amos Gebhardt’s practice at the SUBSTATION. Gebhardt’s photographic and film practice is embedded in themes of identity, queerness, resistance and entanglement. Photo Australia supports universal access to diverse, progressive, meaningful discourse to make sense of ourselves and the world around us. A visual medium, it is important to us that the festival represents the diverse and many diasporic voices within our community.
This can be seen through a number of exhibitions throughout the exhibition program, including Natasha Hertanto and Helena Wijaya’s Legenda, presented at Signal, a space for emerging new talent.
The Immigration Museum’s PHOTO 2021 exhibition with South Sudanese Australian artist Atong Atem was another festival highllight. Atem’s photographic practice centres black photography, celebrating afrocentric visions, possibilities, and futures.
Continuing our celebration of Atem’s contribution to the Australian cultural landscape, Atem has been selected as the artist for our next PHOTO Editions photobook, to be launched at PHOTO 2022 International Festival of Photography.
SECTOR DEVELOPMENT
Photo Australia is committed to strengthening and growing the photography sector across Australia, and to build Melbourne’s reputation as a global hub for photography and visual art. PHOTO 2021 was delivered in collaboration with cultural, commercial, education and publishing partners as well and encouraged investment from government, philanthropic and corporate partners.
Not Standing Still: New Approaches to Documentary Photography, Monash Gallery of Art. Photo by Zan Wimberley.
“It was fantastic to be part of a city wide festival, which brought new audiences to our program!” SUBSTATION
Museums and public galleries across Victoria were invited to curate exhibitions for PHOTO 2021, in response to the Festival theme, The Truth.
Exhibitions included Monash Gallery of Art’s Not Standing Still: New approaches in documentary photography with leading names in contemporary photography including Alec Soth, Cristina de Middel, Gauri Gill, Max Pinckers, Dana Lixenberg and Laura El-Tantawy amongst others. Centre for Contemporary Photography presented a survey of one of Australia’a preeminent social and documentary photographers Ruth Maddison, and Town Hall Gallery curated an exhibition exploring experimental photographic practices with Christian Capurro, Ben Cauchi, Danica Chappell, Daniel Crooks, Peta Clancy, Izabela Pluta and Robyn Stacey.
West Space presented a multi-channel video work by Leyla Stevens and an installation by Mashara Wachjudy in the West Space Window. Footscray Community Arts Centre curated an exhibition with Julie Millowick and Jody Haines; and The SUBSTATION a retrospective of photography and films by Amos Gebhardt.
The Peter O’Callaghan QC Gallery at the Victorian Bar presented a collaborative project by Dutch photographer Pieter Henket, and the people from Congo’s Mbomo basin, visualising the oral folk lores of the region.
Some exhibitions were presented in the lead up to the Festival, including NGV’s Destiny Deacon exhibition DESTINY; CCP’s group exhibition of emerging European photographers, No True Self; The New Black Vanguard: Photography between art and fashion, curated by Antwaun Sargent at Bunjil Place; and Affirmation, an exhibition at Koorie Heritage Trust exploring the concept of truth in the context of place, ancestral identity and cultural pride.
“I am delighted Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria is a part of the inaugural PHOTO 2021 International Festival of Photography. In the past, a major, state-wide visual arts festival would have been considered outside our usual remit. Now, it is very much core business and I’m excited to see Melbourne Gardens step into this space as part of the cultural life of the city.”
Tim Entwisle, Director and Chief Executive, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria
Photo Australia works with the broader cultural sector, providing opportunities for artists to operate at cultural sites including Parliament of Victoria, State Library Victoria, Museums Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Peter O’Callaghan QC Gallery, SIGNAL and Italian Cultural Institute.
Garden Variety: Photography, Politics and the Picturesque at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria was curated by Isobel Parker Philip and featured new commissions by James Nguyen, Luke Parker, Steven Hall, Yvonne Todd, Grace Wood and Emmaline Zanelli.
Museums Victoria commissioned new work by Atong Atem for the Immigration Museum; State Library Victoria awarded a Photography Fellowship to Gunditjmara artist Hayley Millar Baker to create a work for PHOTO 2021’s Outdoor Program; and the Peter O’Callaghan QC Gallery at the Victorian Bar removed their portrait collection to allow for the exclusive Australian presentation of Pieter Henket’s Congo Tales: Told by the people of Mbomo, which recreated the never-before recorded mythology of a community in the Congo Basin, the world’s second largest tropical rainforest. PHOTO 2021 reinforces Melbourne’s reputation as a destination for tertiary photography education, and provides a resource for teaching at all ages. In our inaugural year, we are proud to have partnered with six of Melbourne’s leading tertiary education providers including Deakin University, La Trobe University, Monash University, Photography Studies College, RMIT University and the University of Melbourne.
The Festival builds on Melbourne’s history of pioneering photography education. For example, RMIT University first taught photography in 1887 and has done so continuously, making it the oldest ongoing photography course in the world. Melbourne became the location for the first postgraduate courses in photography in the Asia-Pacific region.
Photo Australia works directly with education partners to connect the Festival with students, faculty and alumni— providing opportunities for professional development with New Photographers and our Student Intensive, as well as internships and other programs.
COMMERCIAL GALLERIES & ARTIST-RUN INITIATIVES
69% of surveyed participating galleries welcomed new audiences
Photo Australia celebrates the full ecosystem of the art world in Victoria, inviting commercial galleries and ArtistRun Initiatives (ARIs) to present exhibitions as part of the PHOTO 2021 program, curated in response to the central theme. The focus is to premiere new work by Australian artists.
Through engaging and celebrating the role of commercial galleries, Photo Australia encourages collecting and art sales to increase investment into the sector and the profile of photography as a collectible art form. 14 commercial galleries participated in PHOTO 2021, presenting the work of 21 artists.
ARIs also provide access for recent graduates and early career artists to exhibit alongside more established names elsewhere in the Festival. Photo Australia works with galleries across the state, bringing PHOTO 2021 to regional audiences and encouraging intrastate tourism.
In Bendigo, La Trobe Art Institute presented a new commission by Danica Chappel, created in collaboration with chemical biologist Dr Donna Whelan. Across the road, Bendigo Art Gallery presented work by Bangerang artist Peta Clancy.
Art Gallery of Ballarat exhibited photography by Trent Parke and montage films by Tracey Moffatt and Gary Hillberg. Benalla Art Gallery hosted Damien Chen’s A Stone from Another Mountain, and Horsham Regional Art Gallery presented an exhibition of new work by Bidjara artist Michael Cook.
Geelong Gallery hosted an exhibition by Jacky Redgate that took place as part of the expanded program, in the lead up to PHOTO 2021.
Taking place across two venues, PHOTO 2021’s Photobook Weekend celebrated the role of photobooks in contemporary photographic practice.
The Centre for Contemporary Photography hosted a rich program of artist talks and panel discussions with some of the industry’s leading practitioners alongside an exclusive display of the Momento Pro ANZ Photobook Award. New photobooks were celebrated and launched, including the PHOTO 2021 x Perimeter International Photobook Prize Winner, the inaugural Photo Editions, Emma Phillips, Send Me a Lullaby and David Rozetsky, Double Exposures.
Nearby at Le Space, the Kassel Dummy Award was exhibited in Australia for the first time. The Kassel Dummy Award is a competition for the best unpublished photobook mock-up of the year. From a shortlist of 47 books. 3 winners will be chosen by an international jury, and the winner of the First Prize will be produced and published.
The Photobook Weekend was supported by Momento Pro and Goethe-Institut. PHOTO LIVE PHOTO LIVE is a series of live streamed conversations about the social and cultural role photography plays in our lives, addressing a range of issues from identity and belonging to human rights and social justice. Taking place at PHOTO 2021, and throughout the year, PHOTO LIVE is an ongoing platform for artists and photographers to talk about their work in an informal environment. During the Festival dates, PHOTO LIVE with live audiences, presented in partnership with MPavilion.
PHOTO IDEAS Broadcast online, PHOTO IDEAS is an expanded symposium on photography, truth and power in the postinternet age. Over six sessions, leading international and local artists, curators and academics addressed a range of critical themes. These sessions delved into a variety of global topics, creatively exploring how new methods of making, sharing and viewing photographs are shifting our perception of reality with input from artists, curators, academics and theorists.
PHOTO IDEAS was presented with RMIT School of Art and Monash Gallery of Art, and featured keynotes by Australian and international artists including Sam Contis, Joan Fontcuberta, Laura El-Tantawy, Paola Balla, Alison Bennett and Hoda Afshar.
PHOTOBOOK WEEKEND The Photobook Weekend featured an events program that provided space for photographers, artists and publishers to share their passion for photobook-making and to inspire audiences—with book launches, artist talks and panel discussions.
TOURS Led by artists and curators, a program of walks and cycle rides introduced audiences to PHOTO 2021’s outdoor program in engaging ways.
Focused on PHOTO 2021, Photo Australia presents a number of program strands to support the artistic program and to investigate the Festival theme in depth and from different perspectives. Supported by Creative Victoria, PHOTO 2021’s headline events programs were free for audiences to attend.
150+ Online articles 19 Partner profiles 38 Artist profiles 35 Artist talks 9 Essays
Photo Australia’s website hosts the PHOTO Channel – a platform for exclusive content, media and news updates. Over 150 articles have been published since the Channel was launched and artist content is linked directly through to the program, allowing audiences to access interviews, behind the scenes content and essays related to PHOTO 2021’s exhibitions and events program.
INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT
new Black Vanguard
Photo Australia is committed to increasing visibility and opportunities for Australian photographers and artists internationally through focused programs, online resources, and activating our networks. Our international engagement is bilateral: We premiere work by international artists to inspire audiences and connect Australian artists with the global photography community.
The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion, curated by Antwaun Sargent, organised by Aperture, New York, and made possible, in part, by Airbnb Magazine. The exhibition was presented at Bunjil Place Gallery from 1 July to 27 September 2020 in conjunction with PHOTO 2021. Photography Christian Capurro. The Aperture touring exhibition will next be presented at Les Rencontres d’Arles 2021. The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion, curated by Antwaun Sargent, organised by Aperture, New York, and made possible, in part, by Airbnb Magazine. The exhibition was presented at Bunjil Place Gallery from 1 July to 27 September 2020 in conjunction with PHOTO 2021. Photography Christian Capurro. The Aperture touring exhibition will next be presented at Les Rencontres d’Arles 2021.
INTERNATIONAL CURATORS PROGRAM
“The Australia Council is proud to partner with PHOTO 2021 to create space for international exchange, facilitating industry conversations and experimental networking. Innovative international collaboration in arts and culture is essential to maintaining Australia’s international reputation at a time of significant global uncertainty,”
Mikala Tai, Head of Visual Arts, Australia Council for the Arts
PHOTO 2021 partnered with the Australia Council to present the International Curators Program, held virtually for the first time. The International Curators Program showcases art and artists here in Australia to international tastemakers. 23 Australian artists presented their arts practice to 9 international curators from around the globe. This included 4 keynote lectures, one-to-one virtual ‘studio’ visits, and a closing party on Mozilla Hubs, designed by PHOTO 2021 artist Atong Atem.
The aims of the program were to raise the profile of Australia’s contemporary artists and curatorial expertise, demonstrate Australia’s growing regional engagement, and develop long-term relationships which will enable new partnerships, collaborations and market development. The virtual tour is an opportunity to capture the outdoor displays presented in PHOTO 2021. This gives the opportunity to develop new interstate and international audiences who otherwise could not have visited PHOTO 2021. Each artwork has been documented using a 360 degree camera, allowing audiences to tour the PHOTO 2021 outdoor program in its entirety.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS
Elias Redstone Artistic Director, PHOTO 2021
Photo Australia seeks opportunities for Australian artists to exhibit internationally. James Tylor, Amanda Williams and Atong Atem will be presenting their commissions for PHOTO 2021 at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool in 2021.
Hoda Afshar will also be exhibiting her PHOTO 2021 Fellowship commission Agonistes as part of the Bristol Photo Festival in 2021.
AUSTRALIAN EXCLUSIVES
Photo Australia presented 19 exclusive presentations by international artists at PHOTO 2021 as part of the outdoor program.
Throughout the Festival, the inclusion of international photography provides artists and audiences exposure to contemporary photographic practice from around the world, and elevates the profile of local artists who are exhibiting alongside more established international peers.
