We took a road trip as soon as the barrier between metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria was lifted. A night in Ballan at Mary and Kevin’s and a night in Ballarat at Terry’s. A chance to visit the 2021 Ballarat International Foto Biennale. I feel for the organisers, originally due to go from 28 August to 24 October it has been closed and opened a couple of times and has now been extended to next year. Worth a visit. You can get a pass which gives you access to all of the ticketed exhibitions over a three day period which is well worth it if you are staying in the city.
I love the presence of photos all around the town centre.
These striking images are in the middle of Sturt Street.
On our first day – a very wet Wednesday afternoon – we visited the centrepiece of this year’s offerings : Linda McCartney Retrospective. It’s at the Art Gallery and was terrific. Some say she was just lucky with her subjects – but I think her photos are great. The ones of famous people show all of them very relaxed and open- unlike their usual poses. And the ones of Paul and her family are gorgeous – he’s such a cheerful, good-natured fellow. I always liked him the best! There are lots of other subjects – street scenes, rural landscapes, horses – that are very evocative. She always used natural light. A number of videos were interesting; especially an interview with her. Tragic that she died so young. We weren’t allowed to take our own pictures but here’s the one from the Biennale catalogue that captures the flavour of her photos of the Beatles.
And here is a great review of this exhibition from The Conversation.
The following day we checked out the Martin Kantor Portrait Prize finalists at the Town Hall. I always enjoy these, although this year the photos didn’t seem as adventurous as other years. Named after a portrait photographer the first prize is worth $15,000. Visitors get to vote for a people’s choice award worth $1,000. This year via a QR code check in, with which we are all now tragically familiar! I voted for this one of Bruce Pascoe by Anna Maria Antoinette D’Addario. Beautiful colours and fits the criteria of being of a significant Australian acclaimed or recognised in their field.
And I liked this one which was called Kate Mulvany – Resolute, by George Fetting. It is so clear – you can see the beautiful colour of her eyes. She’s a playwright, screenwriter, librettist and actor. I liked the addition of the glass which makes you think of the screens through which we see people – slightly distorted. Terrific.
And I liked this one for its inventiveness – although it was said to be an accidental double exposure. Tim Page – Ghost from the Past by Stephen Dupont. He is a war photographer best known for his images of the Vietnam war. His philosophy – a good war photo must be anti-war.
And I loved the colour in this photo by Elise Derwin of Lindy Lee, an influential Australian Chinese artist. It’s not very well captured here because of the reflections of the photos opposite.
At the Post Office Gallery we saw finalists in The Fineman New Photography Award. The Biennale has established this competition which focuses on emerging photographic artists working throughout the Asia-Pacific region. There’s a $10,000 prize awarded by an international jury and again we got to vote for a $1,000 people’s choice award. I voted for this work by Michelle Chan from Hong Kong called DayDayCook. It was prompted by concern about the high levels of food waste from typical Chinese dishes – each image is made out of kitchen scraps.
The individual photos are exquisite. Here’s an eggshell.
This one is some sort of germinating seed – so exotic.
I was also very taken by photographs by aJapanese photographer, Moe Suzuki. His display was called SOKOHI which is the word for glaucoma in Japanese. His father is losing his sight because of this disease. His photos are his attempt to understand and reflect upon the slow deterioration in his eyesight that his father is experiencing.
This image of a son watching his father calmly, slowly walking towards the new world is moving.
Joe voted for Jin Qian Luo from China, whose The Prosperity of the Sixdomestic Animals was humorous and heartbreaking. He’s concerned about the disappearance of traditional Chinese rural life with mechanized farming replacing the domestic animals they formerly used. He placed fake animals in his home village to illustrate what has been lost. Here horses cross a bridge.
And here he has placed water buffalo in a field along with the tractor that is displacing them.
On to the Mining Exchange where we all had a surprisingly emotional time viewing Raining Embers – photos by four photographers taken during the 2020 Australian bushfires. The photos by Rachel Mounsey were heart-breaking.
Especially this one – so evocative of the horror of that day at Mallacoota – worth a thousand words.
Each photographer had a wall of pictures. Ruth Maddison’s straddled a corner.
I liked the stark central photo on that wall.
The one international photographer involved, and only male, South African Gideon Mendel, focussed on the physical damage caused by the fire, finding beauty in heat damaged objects.
And I couldn’t work out the subject of this photo – so beautiful it could be a painting.
He placed the owners of burnt out properties in amidst the mangled iron and burnt stumps of their homes which was moving. Along with hopeful signs of natural regeneration.
This is melted aluminium from a burnt car in Cobargo.
Photographs by a fourth photographer, Aletheaia Casey were awkwardly placed behind the volunteer station, so I couldn’t take pictures, but they were just as good – and as moving. We were surprised at how moving we found this – which must not be missed if you get to the biennale.
A trip down memory lane awaited us at Number One – Gudinski; worth visiting just for the venue which is in the basement of the Mechanics Institute. A volunteer guided us down to this amazing space.
Low curved ceilings made it look a bit like a wine cellar. Photos strung up as if on a washing line.
This is the view from the far end of the room. It used to house a restaurant and shops.
Our volunteer gave us a potted history of the place, which included keeping copies of papers from the Mechanics Institute library, the Bulletin, Argosy, in these flat shelves. It’s very damp down here – they’d have needed the air-holes in the shelves.
The photos were great fun. There were a few of Gudinski but he wasn’t the main focus and this was fun.
The Biennale in partnership with Mushroom Group put out an Open Call for photographs of musicians touring under the Mushroom Group and Frontier Touring banner. They got lots! Leonard was there. I’m not sure what year this was – maybe the year we saw him.
But we really liked all of the historic ones – a real trip down memory lane. Here’s a beauty of Skyhooks in the band’s heyday – 1986.
And here is Deborah Conway in the early days – 1992.
There were so many photos – Johnny Farnham, Split Enz, Daddy Cool, Wilbur Wild – it took one back to he heady days of Australian music. Lots of international acts as well. Including this one.
So hundreds of photos, cleverly displayed – both in the actual basement and in the corridor leading to it. Another exhibit worth a visit for baby boomers at any rate – if they can manage the rail-less steps leading down to it.
Our final port of call was at the National Centre For Photography where we saw Styx by the French artist, Alix Marie. It’s described as an immersive installation exploring the fragility of the contemporary world order. I’m not sure about that – we didn’t stay long enough looking at the individual components to get a sense of any deeper meaning – but it is very beautiful, and thought provoking. You enter this circle of hanging curtains.
On which images are printed; although it is the beautiful blue colour that instantly attracts.
Until you reach the centre which is here.
An exhibit requiring time to contemplate – which in our busy world we often don’t have time for. But it’s certainly worth making time for a visit to Ballarat for the Biennale – it’s a great festival. Worth staying over a couple of days.
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