NGV x Country Road commission

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A photograph of artists Doreen Jinggarrabarra and Stephanie Ali in ManingridaI is now being used in outdoor display in Melbourne to promote the upcoming NGV x Country Road: FUTURE COUNTRY 2026 project. You can see it on the exit wall at NGV International and the external facade of the studio at NGV Australia over at Fed Square.

The Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions is a national, biennial mentorship and exhibition program that supports emerging Australian First Nations artists and designers. This initiative brings together eight emerging creatives with leading industry mentors, fostering a unique opportunity for both artistic and professional growth. Through this collaboration, mentors offer guidance, encouragement and expertise, supporting the artists to realise their most ambitious work to date.

In 2026, FUTURE COUNTRY – the second iteration of the Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions – invites artists to look to the future while simultaneously acknowledging the past. Working across diverse mediums and innovative practices, the selected artists respond to the exhibition’s key themes of ancestral memory, truth-telling, restorying, and future-making.

The resulting commissions explore and reflect non-linear notions of time, honour intergenerational knowledges, and an embodied and relational understanding of place. Collectively, the works artists’ new commissions featured in FUTURE COUNTRY convey the strength and breadth of contemporary Australian First Nations art and design practice across the country.

Photo Essay of the Red Centre Nats up on Guardian Australia

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The Northern Territory town comes alive in a flurry of fumes and smoke as cars and bikes compete in a range of categories to win the crown at the three-day Red CentreNATs festival. Enthusiasts and spectators from all over the country flock to Alice Springs for drag races, burnouts and vintage cars, in a high-octane celebration of speed set against the backdrop of the desert.

See more on Guardian Australia

See the full series here

ACTS I-VII at Benalla Art Gallery for Photo 2022

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ACTS I-VII, a group show by Oculi Collective, is now open at Benalla Art Gallery, part of the Photo 2022 International Festival of Photography. It’s been a huge amount of work to conceptualise, produce and project manage this exhibition, but I’m super proud of what we’ve been able to achieve together. Big thanks to the project team and curator Natasha Christia for your support, work and laughs over the past year — we did it!

29th Apr – 17th Jul 2022

Sean Davey & Aishah Kenton (KENTON / DAVEY)

Judith Crispin & Abigail Varney

James Bugg & Alana Holmberg

Rachel Mounsey

KENTON DAVEY

Dean Sewell

ACTS I-VII

Oculi presents ACTS I-VII, a visual meditation on seven modes of being. Reformulating the Seven Year Life Stages, a concept of human development introduced by philosopher Rudolph Steiner in 1907, this exhibition explores seven universal experiences that lie at the heart of our existence: love and fear, trauma and grief, freedom and oppression, control and uncertainty, belonging and exclusion, science and spirit, life and death.

Featuring new and existing work from its members — some unseen, some revisited and some in collaboration with the Benalla community — ACTS I-VII marks Oculi’s third decade as a photography collective. The presented projects, interwoven with reflections from the artists about their work and process, reveal a group considering their roles, responsibilities, archives and desires amidst two years of social and environmental upheaval.

ACTS I-VII is intended as a prompt for contemplation and a reminder of what connects us. With photographs spilling from the gallery walls out into the neighbouring gardens, we’re asked to consider the world and what it means to be an individual who is part of a collective, community or environment? How does it feel to make, share, treasure and consume images, or to be photographed? Do the old rules still apply, or has the moment to rethink arrived?

Acknowledgements

Oculi is a collective of 18 fine-art and documentary photographers. Since its inception in 2000, Oculi has been the leading influence in photographic documentary practice in Australia, offering a visual narrative of contemporary life in the region and beyond.

www.oculi.com.au

ACTS I-VII is curated by Oculi members Aishah Kenton, Abigail Varney, Alana Holmberg, Tajette O’Halloran, and Rachel Mounsey in conversation with Natasha Christia. It was produced and project managed by Alana Holmberg.

Acts I-VII is an official exhibition of PHOTO 2022 International Festival of Photography, a major biennial of new photography and ideas taking place from 29 April to 22 May in Melbourne and regional Victoria. Responding to the theme ‘Being Human’, PHOTO 2022 explores the role photography plays in understanding the contemporary human condition. PHOTO 2022 is produced by Photo Australia in collaboration with cultural institutions, museums and galleries, and education, industry and government partners.

www.photo.org.au

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. This project was made possible by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, which supports the arts in regional and remote Australia.

Exhibition on steps of Parliament House for Photo 2022

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Four Oculi photographers James Bugg, Abigail Varney, Rachel Mounsey and myself were recently commissioned by the Victorian Parliament to produce series of photographs based on the theme of coming together' in regional Victoria. The commission took place in conjunction with the Photo 2022 International Festival of Photography and have now been displayed on the steps of Parliament. Images from my the Victorian chapter of my series Idle Hours were displayed for the first time.

“After two years of social restrictions, the act of coming together has never felt more vital for Victorians. As the state emerged from the second year of lockdowns, four Victorian photographers set out to make a series that explored the idea of gathering in regional areas. Travelling from the Victorian high country to far east Gippsland and the Murray River, each photographer considered the different locations, motivations and events that bring people together. The result is a four-part series called Gather, commissioned as part of the Photo 2022 International Festival of Photography.”

-Read more on The Guardian

Australian Open 2021 for The New York Times

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I am a Melburnian and a tennis fan. Despite month upon month of a hard lockdown last year to achieve our much-envied covid-free status, despite low-level ire at the preferential treatment sport gets here compared with things like the arts, I wanted the tournament to go ahead. I willed it to go ahead.

Binging on tennis was the way my family rounded out the summer school holidays and escaped unrelenting blistering mid-summer days of above 40C. At 11am curtains were drawn to block out the heat and minimise reflection on the television screen. The squeak of sneakers on the hardcourt and crack of the tennis ball became the ambient soundtrack of the house, accompanied by pedestal fans and air conditioning. Over the course of the tournament, an installation of tennis photography grew across my wardrobe door, each player carefully cut out from the newspaper and attached with lumps of bluetak. Anna Kournikova, Martina Hingis, Steffi Graff, Pat Rafter — tennis was at the heart of my first photography exhibitions.

I wanted the tournament to go ahead to achieve a true feeling of summer normalcy, to believe the year ahead would be different than the one before. I wanted a chance to photograph an event that marked the end of every summer I can remember. While the virus found ways to disrupt and public sentiment towards the event dipped and swayed, somehow the show did indeed go on.

Here are some of the features that ran on The New York Times with my pictures, written by Matthew Futterman:

Big thanks to Fujifilm Australia for loaning me an incredible kit for this assignment. I was able to get my hands on a GFX 100 and two X-T4 camera bodies plus a range of lenses to cover me courtside and beyond.

Porch Diaries published on The Washington Post: Perspective

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What started as simple idea to record visitors on my iso-birthday has expanded to become an ongoing record of this global moment in history from a single perspective: my porch. I was thrilled to have the early stages of this series published on The Washington Post recently. Thank you to Olivier Laurent, photo editor there who loved the work and published it immediately, giving me such a boost and motivation to continue as long as we’re under social distancing restrictions.

See the feature here.

And see Porch Diaries unfold here.

Currently working on a few grant applications to get Porch Diaries turned into a book and exhibition, stay tuned!





New work published on The New York Times - In Australia, an Architect Designs for a Future of Fire

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On a windy day in February, I visited the beautiful south eastern corner of Tasmania on assignment with The New York Times to photograph Apex Point House and Dr Ian Weir, the architect who designed it.

As the country rebuilds after its devastating wildfires, Ian Weir is leading the push for integrating houses with the land, rather than mass clearance of vegetation.

Along with a lovely read by journalist Casey Quackenbush, a small selection of the images were published online and in print on Monday 20 April, 2020.












Nominated for World Press Photo 2020 Joop Swart Masterclass

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I am amongst 196 nominees for this year’s Joop Swart Masterclass, World Press Photo Foundation’s well known education program held in Amsterdam each year. I’ve had my eye on this masterclass for a long time, but age restrictions prevented me from being nominated. Last year those restrictions were lifted in recognition of the fact that you can still be emerging talent, but over the age of 35! Very cool.

I’m putting my application together now, the final 12 will be announced in the middle of the year. Wonderful to see such a diverse bunch of photographers in the mix from all over the world, including many Australians this year.

Run as a week-long intensive program, the Joop Swart Masterclass identifies, supports and educates new talent in the field of documentary photography, visual journalism, and visual storytelling.

The masterclass is named after Joop Swart, a passionate supporter of photographic talent who played a major role in the foundation's history, first as the photo contest jury chair from 1966 to 1974, and then as a member of the foundation's board from 1970 until his death in 1994.

Launched in 1994, the masterclass has contributed to the development of generations of visual storytellers. Participants have later gone on to lead the masterclass themselves, be awarded in the World Press Photo Contest and have their work published in some of the most prestigious publications around the world.

Selected for 2020 Farside Collective artist residency in Leh, India

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Wonderful news to be selected as one of five artists to participate in Farside Collective’s long residency in Leh, India this year. I’ll be heading there for a month in July to make new work and produce an artist book along with photographers, writers, curators and illustrators from Wales, Mexico and India.

The residency is our attempt to bring artists from around the world to this small town in the mountains and create books. Art-books and zines are new to India and we believe it is important to expose people here in Leh locally and India in general to the idea of self-published books. Over both the short & long residencies the artists will work closely with us in a project selected by them manifesting in photographic, literary or illustration based printed matter. Additionally, the long-residency artist offer small workshops for fellow artists and locals in Leh. Upon mutual agreement, Farside Collective will choose books/zines made during both the residencies to be published and distributed in India & abroad.

I’m looking forward to this experience and will post preparations and work in progress here.

More information about the residency here.

New work published on Libération.fr - In Australia, with Victoria fire refugees

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During Australia’s bushfire crisis, I spent a few days Wangaratta, north-eastern Victoria working on a story for French daily newspaper Libération. Along with journalist Valentine Sabouraud, we met with fire evacuees, volunteers and emergency services near the Ovens-Complex, in the state’s Alpine areas.

A selection of the images are featured below, you can see the photo essay online here.




Unless You Will Studio - new business launch

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Yesterday I launched a new business called Unless You Will Studio, with copilot Heidi Romano. After working together on various clients and projects including LensCulture, Photography Studies College, and World Bank, Heidi and I decided to join forces in an official capacity to offer communications and design solutions for the photography industry. 

Unless You Will is not a new name in photography. Heidi started Unless You Will as a passion project some 10 years ago. First realised as an amazing online photography journal, it went on to inspire a festival and later shape-shifted into a gallery residency and then a weekend conference. I’m proud to be part of the next chapter for Unless You Will and continue the legacy Heidi created over the past decade. Our aim is to be an invigorating and positive force in our community, and we’re excited about new collaborations on the horizon.

Looking forward to some exciting new projects in 2020!

btw, I’m still freelancing as a photographer and teaching, UYW part of the bigger hustle :)

Photo credit: Katrin Koenning

Photo credit: Katrin Koenning

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'This time it's personal' group show at Sun Studios, Sydney

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A print of mine is part of the massive tenth annual ‘This Time It’s Personal (TTIP)’ exhibition at Sun Studios, Sydney. I’m one of 100 photographers selected by curator Rachel Knepfer, alongside some friends and mentors in Australian photography.

TTIP offers a glimpse into what Australia’s leading professionals shoot for love alone. Opening on Thursday 28 November in the SUNSTUDIOS Sydney Atrium Gallery, the exhibition provides a platform for the industry’s best professional image-makers to exhibit personal work in the name of raising funds for an important cause, and to come together to celebrate another year.

All works are sold on the night and as usual, every dollar raised will be donated to Chris O’Brien Lifehouse in support of cancer research and treatment.

Opens Thursday 28 November!

Details here.

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