MIRROR labels
MIRROR: New views on photography
MIRROR: New views on photography is an exhibition of words and pictures at State Library Victoria. 141 photographs from the State Library Victoria Collection are responded to through the work of storytellers from Victoria.
Dating from 1950 to today, the photographs were taken by artists, documentarians and photojournalists. Some are born-digital, while others were made for record keeping or for books, gallery walls or newspapers.
The photographs are interpreted through the theme of ‘mirror’ by novelists, essayists, spoken word artists, non-fiction writers, activists, songwriters and poets. In this exhibition mirrors can be objects on bathroom walls, a screen in a photo booth, the reflection of the sky on a body of water, 2 identical children, an imitation or a copy. Mirrors are also referenced through their symbolism: they reveal other ways of seeing, and even the idea of photography itself.
The storytellers’ responses have been woven into films for projection. Alice Skye has arranged lyrics; Leah Jing McIntosh has composed a short essay; Jason Tamiru has performed an audiovisual journey; Pasifika Storytellers Collective has made songs, films, short texts, spoken word and prints; Prithvi Varatharajan has written poems; Superfluity has created a radio show; and Walter Kadiki has performed an Auslan poem.
The complete set of 141 photographs can be viewed in 2 ‘cinemas’ within the gallery, along with new images documenting how they are stored in the Collection. Collectively, the images convey the breadth of the Library’s photography collection. Yet they also reflect absence. We acknowledge that not all Victorians will see pictures relatable to themselves or their families or cultures. Not everyone in the photographs is named. The images represent historical institutional blind spots which are being corrected. This exhibition draws attention to how we grow the State Library Victoria Collection, and the ever-present invitation for others to tell stories about, around and against it.
Jade Hadfield, Kate Rhodes, Linda Short
State Library Victoria curators
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Argus Newspaper
Barat Ali Batoor
W Beams
Ross Bird
Peter Douglas Campbell
Antonia Chaffey
Maree Clarke
Destiny Deacon
Maggie Diaz
Douglas W Down
Paul Dunn
Rennie Ellis
Sue Ford
Lyle Fowler
Viva Gibb
Elizabeth Gilliam
Susan Gordon-Brown
Mathias Heng
Herald and Weekly Times
Ian Harrison Hill
Grant Hobson
Maylei Hunt
Norman Ikin
Katayoun Javan
Alan K Jordan
Ian Kenins
Koo Bohnchang
Kim Kruger
Le Dawn Studios
Ruth Maddison
Jesse Marlow
Ali MC (Alister McKeich)
Georgia Metaxas
Hayley Millar-Baker
Julie Millowick
Helmut Newton
Polixeni Papapetrou
Louis Porter
Dyranda Prevost
Archer Roberts
Robert Rooney
Annette Ruzicka
Emmanuel Santos
Rhonda Senbergs
Wolfgang Sievers
Matthew Sleeth
Mark Strizic
Simon Terrill
The Huxleys
Robert Whitaker
Yuncken, Freeman Brothers, Griffiths & Simpson
Reimund Zunde
Responses by
Alice Skye
Leah Jing McIntosh
Jason Tamiru
Prithvi Varatharajan
Walter Kadiki
Pasifika Storytellers Collective
Bridget Inder
Grace Vanilau
Irrawaddy Matuauto-Epa
Jessica Paraha
Lay the Mystic
Marita Davies
Mele-Ane Havea
Sēini F Taumoepeau
Veisinia Tonga
Superfluity
Casey Bennetto
Christos Tsiolkas
Clem Bastow
Creative collaborators
Antuong Nguyen
Ziga Testen
Louise Wright and
Mauro Baracco
Corin Ileto
Annika Kafcaloudis
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The exhibition
The lobbies
Welcome to the exhibition. Here we have information about the exhibition concept and participants, as well as accessibility information and links to the exhibition microsite. Please take one of our free exhibition guides.
The cinemas
In these spaces are 141 photographs from the collection presented on two screens, along with new images documenting how they are stored in the collection.
The projections
In this central space are creative responses to the photography collection by Victorian storytellers. You can sit here to watch the films.
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The cinemas
There are two spaces in the gallery that we are calling ‘cinemas’. In here are the 141 photographs from the collection presented on one screen and on the other are newly commissioned photographs documenting how they are stored in the collection. We see the collection images and how they are stored side by side. All the pairs appear in a random loop but all have image captions including the artist name and title.
Argus Newspaper
First Allied air forces raid on the eastern shores of the Gulf of Bone at Pomelaa, Celebes
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
c. 1943
17 x 22 cm
H98.103/1550
Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library Victoria
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Barat Ali Batoor
Candlelight Vigil #1
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2019m
25 x 38 cm
H2019.277/9
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W Beams
Warrandyte people’s water tanks are at zero level so housewives are turning to the old Yarra for their supply for both drinking and washing. Here Mrs. Beatrice Abel washes her son Peter whilst twin brother Maurice watches.
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1954
26 x 21 cm
H2002.199/1006
Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library Victoria
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Ross Bird
Father Rafael Dos Santos from Liquica, East Timor, at the Puckapunyal Safe Haven
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1999
27.5 x 22.7 cm
H2000.198/28
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Ross Bird
Rosa de Jesus, (80), from Dili, sitting in her room at the Puckapunyal Safe Haven
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1999
27.2 x 22.2 cm
H2000.198/50
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Ross Bird
Alexandrino Da Costa, an East Timorese refugee protesting in a rally on the Westgate Bridge, drawing attention to the plight of members of their families forcibly removed to West Timor
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1999
27.7 x 22.7 cm
H2000.198/18
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Ross Bird
Identity tags for Lucinda Sousa and five of her eight children
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1999
27.3 x 22.8 cm
H2000.198/26
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Ross Bird
Members of the Araujo family − Natalino (34), Lucia (28), and Onigenes (2) from Bidau, Dili, at the Puckapunyal Safe Haven
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1999
27.1 x 22.2 cm
H2000.198/53
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Ross Bird
Florentino, asylum seekers’ protest, Melbourne, 1997
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1997
26 x 17 cm
H99.164/7
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Ross Bird
Veronica Pereira Maia, Sydney, 1996
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1996
25 x 17 cm
H99.164/6
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Ross Bird
Jose Adriano Gusmao, Sydney, 2016
1996
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
17 x 26 cm
H99.164/4
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Koo Bohnchang
Road 01: Clunes 2015
Colour photographic print
2015
45.4 x 42 cm
H2015.187
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Peter Douglas Campbell
Rolled and punched bed of dough forms a beautiful geometry as it heads for the oven to become Wagon Wheels
2006
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
31 x 41 cm
H2007.97/13
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Antonia Chaffey
Boy
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
1985
18.9 x 18.7 cm
H90.67/3
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Maree Clarke
Participants in the NADOC March, Melbourne, 1990
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1990
26 x 37.5 cm
H91.54/2
Courtesy of the artist and Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
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Destiny Deacon
Whitey’s watchin’
Colour photographic print
1994
26 x 21 cm
H99.222
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley Gallery, Sydney
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Maggie Diaz
Unidentified girl, near a shop front, with the reflection of a boy on a bike in the window, Gardenvale
Black and white negative
c. 1950–70
6 x 6 cm
H2012.240/87c
Courtesy of Gwendolen DeLacy, Curator of the Diaz Collection
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Maggie Diaz
Diaz self portraits – smoke and mirror
Black and white negative
1970
6 x 6 cm
H2014.1139/40a
Courtesy of Gwendolen DeLacy, Curator of the Diaz Collection
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Maggie Diaz
Jan Sheppard and family
Colour negative
1980–89
5.5 x 5.5 cm
H2014.136/135a
Courtesy of Gwendolen DeLacy, Curator of the Diaz Collection
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Maggie Diaz
Close up of Maggie’s hands
Black and white negative
1958
6 x 6 cm
H2011.62/332c
Courtesy of Gwendolen DeLacy, Curator of the Diaz Collection
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Douglas W Down
Mirror – oblong, house and bridge design
Digitised glass negative
1957
8.5 x 11 cm
H92.388/246
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Paul Dunn
John Tjepkema
Digital file (JPEG)
2019
79.1 x 111.8 cm
H2022.181/14
Courtesy of Action for More Independence & Dignity in Accommodation
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Rennie Ellis
Model applying makeup
Digitised colour slide (35 mm transparency)
1988
35 mm
H2010.126/868
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
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Rennie Ellis
Interior of tattoo parlour
Digitised colour slide (35 mm transparency)
c. 1980–89
35 mm
H2012.140/1535
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
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Rennie Ellis
Interior views of Melbourne City Baths showing: older women in water, possibly water aerobics classes
Digitised colour slide (35 mm transparency)
c. 1980–89
35 mm
H2011.150/2740
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
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Rennie Ellis
Children viewed through Water window, National Gallery of Victoria
Digitised colour slide (35 mm transparency)
c. 1980–89
35 mm
H2011.150/1226
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
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Rennie Ellis
Interior wall insulation in Gina O’Donahue’s house which was rebuilt after a bushfire
Digitised colour slide (35 mm transparency)
1983
35 mm
H2012.140/2774
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
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Rennie Ellis
Schepisi shoot, Yarra Bend
Digitised colour slide (35 mm transparency)
1965
35 mm
H2011.2/1046
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
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Rennie Ellis
Gordon, young man, punk, Greville St., Prahran
Digitised colour slide (35 mm transparency)
1985
35 mm
H2012.140/1406
Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
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Sue Ford
Self Portrait With Bouffant
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1961
39.2 x 26.5 cm
H99.223/1
Courtesy of the Sue Ford Archive
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Lyle Fowler
Display of Vacola brand foodstuffs
Black and white negative
1950
20.3 x 25.4 cm
H92.20/4543
Harold Paynting Collection, State Library Victoria
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Viva Gibb
Portrait of Viva Jillian Gibb at her studio, 1989
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1989
32 x 31 cm
H98.161/135
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Viva Gibb
Mahamakut Thai Buddhist Centre, Stanmore, Sydney, 1993
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1993
33 x 31 cm
H98.161/6
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Viva Gibb
Mrs. Mary (Nita) Maher in her living room, the original Carboor Hotel (closed in 1955), Carboor
Photographic print (bromide)
1991
32 x 30 cm
H98.161/269
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Viva Gibb
The blessing of the crosses in the sanctified water at Epiphany, Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Maribyrnong, 1994
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1994
21 x 26 cm
H98.161/324
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Viva Gibb
Blind man and dog outside Myer, 1987
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1987
21 x 26 cm
H98.161/368
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Viva Gibb
Thai Buddhists, Springvale, 1993
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1993
21 x 26 cm
H98.161/408
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Viva Gibb
Paul Salley, originally from Ivory Coast, Africa
Photographic print (bromide)
1986
36 x 30 cm
H98.161/165
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Viva Gibb
Milton, 1988
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1988
36 x 31 cm
H98.161/138
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Viva Gibb
Moslem women at the end of Ramadan fasting – Eid al-Fitr
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1994
31 x 37 cm
H98.161/69
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Viva Gibb
Performer at Tricia’s nightclub West Melb, Melbourne – Drag show and cabaret March, 1979
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1979
32 x 31 cm
H98.161/157
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Viva Gibb
Koori Deb ball – San Remo Ballroom – Debutante
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1990
26 x 20 cm
H98.161/301
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Viva Gibb
Children at Nigerian Independence Day, Carlton
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1992
31 x 38 cm
H98.161/185
Courtesy of the Estate of Viva Gibb
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Elizabeth Gilliam
Telling fortunes from ‘reading’ hands, Doncaster East High School
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1988
20.3 x 25.4 cm
H92.250/49
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Elizabeth Gilliam
Leah King-Smith
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1990
30.2 x 25.6 cm
H90.74
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Elizabeth Gilliam
Lebanese boy and Aboriginal girl embracing, Kerferd Rd. Pier, Sth. Melb.
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
1989
20.3 x 25.4 cm
H92.250/1114
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Susan Gordon-Brown
Tim Flannery
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2005
28 x 28 cm
H2006.190/5
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Mathias Heng
Ahmad and Ali sit on the lawn outside 16 Derby Street, Kensington
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2001
28.6 x 38.6 cm
H2001.245/4
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Mathias Heng
The Gill Memorial Home, 217 A’Beckett Street, Melbourne
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1995
30.3 x 40.6 cm
H95.190/14
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Mathias Heng
The Gill Memorial Home, 217 A’Beckett Street, Melbourne
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1995
30.3 x 40.6 cm
H95.190/17
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Mathias Heng
The Gill Memorial Home, 217 A’Beckett Street, Melbourne
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1995
30.3 x 40.6 cm
H95.190/16
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Ian Harrison Hill
Segment loader & gantry crane on elevated roadway between Arden St. & Macauley Rd., Kensington, 21/1/98
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1998
31 x 41 cm
H99.20/49
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Ian Harrison Hill
Rear of Members’ Stand and Gallery of Sport at MCG [i.e. Melbourne Cricket Ground] viewed from new stand
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2004
30 x 41 cm
H2004.24/1
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Ian Harrison Hill
Rear of Olympic and members’ stands at MCG [i.e. Melbourne Cricket Ground] showing gap opened by demolition
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2004
30 x 41 cm
H2004.24/3
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Grant Hobson
Cape Schanck Lighthouse – Ted Peers, Lighthouse keeper
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
c. 1994–95
15.9 x 16 cm
H95.230/1
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Grant Hobson
Cape Schanck Lighthouse – The sun shining through the lantern lens
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
c. 1994–95
15.9 x 16 cm
H95.230/3
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Grant Hobson
J & R Embroiderers, Fenton Street, Huntingdale
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
1994
19.2 x 23.9 cm
H95.230/113
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Maylei Hunt
Pride #45, First Nations Sistas: Melbourne VIC Australia,
28 January 2018
Colour photographic print
2018
31.3 x 43.5 cm
H2019.239/23
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Maylei Hunt
Equal love march #14: Melbourne Vic Australia, 20 May 2017
Colour photographic print
2017
31.3 x 43.5 cm
H2019.239/32
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Norman Ikin
Vali Myers
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
c. 1950–62
25 x 20 cm
H2001.90/212
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Norman Ikin
Ballet dancers
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
c. 1950–54
50 x 39 cm
H2006.1/4
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Katayoun Javan
Building a home away from home: photographs of
Iranian immigrants
Colour photographic print
2015
33 x 40.6 cm
H2017.41/10
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Katayoun Javan
Building a home away from home: photographs of
Iranian immigrants
Colour photographic print
2015
33 x 40.6 cm
H2017.41/4
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Katayoun Javan
Building a home away from home: photographs of
Iranian immigrants
Colour photographic print
2015
33 x 40.6 cm
H2017.41/9
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Alan K Jordan
Prison wall with bluestone building behind, Pentridge Prison
Black and white negative
1968
35 mm
H2010.105/72b, H2010.105/72
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Alan K Jordan
Row of single storey terrace houses with council high rise
flats in background
Black and white negative
1970
35 mm
H2010.105/699a, H2010.105/699
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Alan K Jordan
Inner Melbourne suburb, possibly Fitzroy, with housing commission buildings in the background
Black and white negative
1970
35 mm
H2010.105/693a, H2010.105/693
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Alan K Jordan
Exterior view of a block of flats
Black and white negative
1970
35 mm
H2010.105/381f, H2010.105/381
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Alan K Jordan
Shared sleeping quarters for men
Black and white negative
1969
35 mm
H2010.105/151f, H2010.105/151
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Alan K Jordan
Hostel beds, location unknown
Black and white negative
c. 1968
35 mm
H2010.105/64d
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Ian Kenins
Protestor remaining after anti Kennett demonstration by
20,000 Victorians, May 1993
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1993
23.9 x 35.1 cm
H2001.306/14
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Kim Kruger
Black man and the church, Arthur Cole
1990
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
31.7 x 20.9 cm
H96.117
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Ruth Maddison
Dr Rachel Webster, head of Astrophysics, Melbourne University
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1996
23.9 x 21.3 cm
H2000.173/57
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Ruth Maddison
View from my bed, Royal Women’s Hospital
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1981
21 x 14 cm
H92.438/5
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Jesse Marlow
Homeless man preparing a bed on flattened cardboard boxes, Flinders Street Station
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1999–2000
22.2 x 33 cm
H2001.256/7
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Jesse Marlow
Demonstrator in a balaclava crouching on a window-sill of the Crown Casino World Economic Forum S11 demonstration, September 2000
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2000
25 x 37 cm
H2001.11/8
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Jesse Marlow
Young woman at the automatic photo booth, Elizabeth Street entrance, Flinders Street Station
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1999–2000
22.2 x 33 cm
H2001.256/11
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Ali MC (Alister McKeich)
Photographs of Invasion Day and Black Lives Matter protest
Digital file (JPEG)
2019–21
H2022.87/1-25
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Ali MC (Alister McKeich)
Photographs of Invasion Day and Black Lives Matter protest
Digital file (JPEG)
2019–21
H2022.87/1-25
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Ali MC (Alister McKeich)
Photographs of Invasion Day and Black Lives Matter protest
Digital file (JPEG)
2019–21
H2022.87/1-25
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Georgia Metaxas
Group of four women standing on steps of Parliament House, Melbourne, during the candlelight vigil
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2001
26 x 38 cm
H2004.40/4
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Georgia Metaxas
Group of Cypriots, mainly young women, during march marking the 28th anniversary of Turkish occupation in Cyprus
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2002
26 x 38 cm
H2004.40/8
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Georgia Metaxas
Group of women during the march marking the 28th anniversary of Turkish occupation of Cyprus
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2002
26 x 38 cm
H2004.40/5
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Georgia Metaxas
Priests proceeding along pier, Station Pier, Port Melbourne
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
2000
26 x 38 cm
H2003.51/9
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Georgia Metaxas
Greek men in social clubs and cafes around Melbourne, Vic.
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2003–4
30 x 40 cm
H2006.60/3
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Georgia Metaxas
Hellenic Dancefest series, Crown Casino, 19th September 1999
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
1999
17 x 24 cm
H2000.142/4
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Hayley Millar-Baker
I will survive 8
Black and white photographic print
2020
93 x 70 cm
H2022.7
Courtesy of the artist and Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
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Julie Millowick
Victorian Arts Centre – Concert hall acoustic discs
Colour negative
1983
35mm
H2022.76/1224
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Julie Millowick
Fruehauf – ‘Gull wing’ cargo truck prototype
Colour negative
c. 1981–87
35mm
H2022.76/388
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Julie Millowick
Public Hall, Guildford, Vic.
Digital file (JPEG)
2011
New acquisition
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Julie Millowick
Hall, Baringup, Vic.
Digital file (JPEG)
2016
New acquisition
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Helmut Newton
Terylene promotion
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1952–58
25 x 20 cm
H2006.47/680
Courtesy of the Helmut Newton Foundation
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Helmut Newton
Hand in focus
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1952–58
25 x 20 cm
H2006.47/681
Courtesy of the Helmut Newton Foundation
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Polixeni Papapetrou
Man and his girlfriend, at the Miss Alternative World Ball, San Remo Ballroom
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1988
35.6 x 35.5 cm
H90.52/7
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Louis Porter
Brunswick
colour photographic print
2007
22.8 x 28.5 cm
H2011.145/6
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Dyranda Prevost
Flat Fleet De-enactment, Fitzroy Swimming Pool,
22 January 1988
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
1988
20.3 x 25.2 cm
H88.43/5
Courtesy of the Dyranda Prevost Archive
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Dyranda Prevost
Flat Fleet De-enactment, Fitzroy Swimming Pool,
22 January 1988
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
1988
20.3 x 25.2 cm
H88.43/2
Courtesy of the Dyranda Prevost Archive
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Archer Roberts
The Cracked Mirror Gallery and Picture Framing, Williamstown
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1992
20.3 x 25.3 cm
H2017.358/48
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Robert Rooney
Factory Landscape: Eltham: Donburn Hire 4, 1978
Photographic print (cibachrome)
1978
19.9 x 29.9 cm
H94.13
Courtesy of Trevor Fuller and John Davies, via Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney
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Annette Ruzicka
Immy Maryam sitting in front row of runway
Digital file (JPEG)
2019
H2022.180/10
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Emmanuel Santos
Child with Lantern
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
1988
20.3 x 25.4 cm
H92.250/24
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Emmanuel Santos
First baby born at Portsea Safe Haven
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1999
25.2 x 25.3 cm
H2000.210/38
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Emmanuel Santos
Dragon and a puff of smoke, Little Bourke Street
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2000
25.4 x 25.4 cm
H2000.46/10
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Emmanuel Santos
Carlton Mosque
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1999
25.2 x 25.3 cm
H2000.210/32
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Rhonda Senbergs
Gough Whitlam at a book launch, standing in front of Clifton Pugh’s portrait of Sir John Kerr
Colour slide (transparency)
1980-89
35 mm
H2012.200/1252
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program in memory of Rhonda Senbergs
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Rhonda Senbergs
Bob Hawke and Max Gillies on television
Colour slide (transparency)
1980-89
35 mm
H2012.200/760
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program in memory of Rhonda Senbergs
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Rhonda Senbergs
Various demonstrations and protest rallies
Colour slide (transparency)
1980-85
35 mm
H2012.200/412
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program in memory of Rhonda Senbergs
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Wolfgang Sievers
Rolls of sheet aluminium at the Alcoa aluminium fabrication plant, Point Henry, Victoria
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1971
24.1 x 19.4 cm
H2002.99/313
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Wolfgang Sievers
Display of aluminium extrusion profiles manufactured at Alcoa aluminium fabrication plant, Point Henry, Victoria
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1973
25.1 x 19.4 cm
H2002.99/315
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Wolfgang Sievers
2600 horsepower girth gear and pinion for a grinding mill, Vickers Ruwolt, Richmond
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1967
24.5 x 19.7 cm
H2002.99/99
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Wolfgang Sievers
Security surveillance at Ford Research Division, Broadmeadows Plant
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1970
19.1 x 24.1 cm
H98.30/83
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Wolfgang Sievers
‘Spirit of Progress’ and the ‘Daylight Express’,
Spencer Street Station
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
c. 1963
19.9 x 24.6 cm
H2000.195/100
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Wolfgang Sievers
Conductor of the Frankfurt and Germany Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dean Dixon
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1962
20 x 25 cm
H2003.100/576
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Wolfgang Sievers
Mobil and APPM [i.e. APM] buildings at Southgate
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1960
20 x 25 cm
H2003.100/297
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Wolfgang Sievers
Shell Refinery, Geelong, Vic., at night
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1957
20 x 25 cm
H2003.100/117
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Wolfgang Sievers
Interior Ground floor foyer, AMP Building, 535 Bourke Street, Melbourne, with steel sculpture by Michael Young
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1970
24.5 x 19.4 cm
H99.50/228
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Wolfgang Sievers
Interior Guest room Menzies Hotel, 509 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Photographic print (Type C)
1965
20.4 x 25.4 cm
H98.30/400
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Wolfgang Sievers
Men’s toilet facilities converted for the use of
Queen Elizabeth II, Flemington Racecourse
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1963
19.4 x 25 cm
H2001.40/167
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Wolfgang Sievers
New visions in photography, exhibition at the Hotel Federal, photographs by Sievers and Helmut Newton
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1953
17 x 25 cm
H2003.100/49
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Matthew Sleeth
Untitled #46 from the series Rosebud, 2004–6
Photographic print (Type C)
2004
51 x 61 cm
H2008.133/17
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Matthew Sleeth
Untitled #28 from the series Rosebud, 2004–6
Photographic print (Type C)
2006
44 x 53 cm
H2006.204/8
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Mark Strizic
Dishes on kitchen sink in contrasting light and shadow
Black and white negative
c. 1950
35 mm
H2008.11/1305
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Mark Strizic
Bank of Adelaide, 267 Collins Street and the National Bank of Australasia building, 271–279 Collins Street, Melbourne
Black and white negative
1960
12 x 10 cm
H2011.55/1445
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Mark Strizic
Scenes at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne
Black and white negative
1970
35 mm
H2009.81/1232
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Mark Strizic
Pair of sterling silver sweetmeat dishes made in 1780 by Richard Morton and Co., of Sheffield, private Victorian collection
Colour negative
1975–86
10 x 12 cm
H2008.11/461
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Mark Strizic
Cars, Melbourne
Black and white negative
1955
7 x 10 cm
H2008.11/1174
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Simon Terrill
Crowd theory, Southbank
Photographic print (Type C)
2007
121 x 160 cm
H2010.107
Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
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The Huxleys
Where have all the flowers gone
Colour photographic print
2021
62.8 x 94 cm
H2021.167/1
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The Huxleys
Nervous wreck
Colour photographic print
2021
62.8 x 94 cm
H2021.167/6
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The Huxleys
Melting moments
Colour photographic print
2021
62.8 x 94 cm
H2021.167/4
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Robert Whitaker
Olivia Newton-John
Black and white photographic print
1963
42 x 41 cm
H2007.102/2
Courtesy of the Robert Whitaker Archive
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Yuncken, Freeman Brothers, Griffiths & Simpson
The twin orchestras – the Victorian and Sydney Symphonies – rehearsing under the baton of Mr. Alfred Wallenstein
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1959
24.7 x 24.6 cm
H84.182/1/29
Courtesy of the University of Melbourne Archives
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Reimund Zunde
Hiroyuki Iwaki conducts the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra during a rehearsal, Melbourne, 1990
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
1990
20.3 x 25.4 cm
H92.400/17
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Reimund Zunde
Ramp leading up to multistorey carpark
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
2004–6
31 x 41 cm
H2007.32/30
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Reimund Zunde
Vincent sitting in one of the paddocks with his dog Rover at
Pine View Yandoit
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
2002
20.5 x 30.3 cm
H2002.89
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Reimund Zunde
Pra Saneh (with umbrella) at W at Dhammarangsee, Forest Hill, Melbourne’ s first Buddhist monastery, opened in 1984
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
1987
20.3 x 25.4 cm
H92.250/356
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Reimund Zunde
Train travel, Melbourne, Vic.
Photographic print (gelatin silver, selenium toned)
2004-06
41 x 31 cm
H2007.32/27
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Reimund Zunde
Train travel Melbourne, Vic.
photographic print (gelatin silver)
2004–6
41 x 31 cm
H2007.32/29
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Herald and Weekly Times
Mrs David Wang eating moon cakes to celebrate
Moon Cake Festival
Photographic print (gelatin silver)
1964
24 x 15 cm
H38849/4755
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Le Dawn Studios
Speech therapist working with a young boy at hospital
Black and white negative
1970
6 x 9 cm
H2006.100/553
Photographer unknown
Corner of State Governor Sir Dallas Brooks’s drawing room
Colour negative
1949–63
35 x 35 mm
H2014.1063/2
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The projections
In this central space are the creative responses to the photography collection by Victorian storytellers.
Playlist
Jason Tamiru
Walter Kadiki
Prithvi Varatharajan
Superfluity
Leah Jing McIntosh
Alice Skye
Pasifika Storytellers Collective
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Jason Tamiru
The Muluna |Spirit Express
Good morning, customers.
Wominjejka to Kulin Country.
Your next service to depart from platform one Naarm, goes to Taungurung Country.
Train departing.
Stand clear, please.
Stand clear.
Djunda | Bird
Waulula | Oak Tree
Yimudjgan | Cloud
Attention customers, train arriving Taungurung Country.
Your next service depart from platform one Taungurung Country goes to Yorta Yorta Country.
Train departing.
Stand clear, please. Stand clear.
Gurranyin | Eagle
Djarring | Cockatoo
Wakirr | Crow
Attention customers, train arriving Yorta Yorta Country.
People of the Emu and Turtle.
Welcome to the River Country, Yorta Yorta.
Your next service to depart from Yorta Yorta Country is a service to Barapa Barapa Country.
Train departing.
Stand clear please. Stand clear.
Dungula | River
Maniga | Fish
Yenbena | Yorta Yorta
Attention customers, train arriving
Barapa Barapa Country.
The people of the Land and Water.
Welcome to Barapa Barapa Country.
Your next service to depart from Barapa Barapa Country is a service to Dja Dja Wurrung Country.
Train departing.
Stand clear, please. Stand clear.
Bigarrumdja | Emu
Dhukandirra | Wombat
Durrel | Snake
Train arriving Dja Dja Wurrung Country, people of the Eagle and Crow.
Welcome to Dja Dja Wurrung Country.
Your next service to depart from Dja Dja Wurrung Country is a service to Wadawurrung Country.
Train departing.
Stand clear, please.
Stand clear.
Dhakurramutja | Koala
Gorn-gany | Magpie
Durdjilapka | Kookaburra
Train arriving Wadawurrung Country.
Welcome to Wadawurrung Country.
Your next service to depart from Wadawurrung Country is a service to Boon Wurrung Country.
Train departing.
Stand clear, please.
Stand clear.
Dhailipnha | Pelican
Daponga | Pigeon
Dekula | Parakeet
Train arriving Boon Wurrung Country.
Welcome to Boon Wurrung Country.
Bunjil’s people.
Your next service is to Wurundjeri Country.
Train departing.
Stand clear, please. Stand clear.
Moira | Sea
Gadin | Pelican
Warthamarra | Bream
Train arriving Wurundjeri Country.
This is our final stop.
Please ensure you have all valuables.
Welcome to Wurundjeri Country, Bunjil and Waa.
This is our final stop.
Please ensure you have all valuables.
For connections, please look at our timetable screens or ask Metro Train staff.
Thank you for traveling with Metro trains.
Wominjeka to Wurundjeri Country.
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Walter Kadiki
Laments of old Wal
Now I am at an age when getting up and out of bed is but a misery.
The things I used to do are now but a faint memory
when all of a sudden, my energy reserves are but depleted.
And every task I do becomes wearisome.
It’s now that I must pause
Take a deep breath and look back at where I’ve come from.
Not with regret.
But to reflect and muse
On the times long past
And feel an alleviated sense of gratitude
For what has already been accomplished and eternally memorised
For so much of my past has contributed not to this frail being but my innermost being
My skin is tired of hiding its age
Many years of battling the elements,
The wind and the sun
Day in and day out.
It no longer sits firm; it too is worn out.
A sombre reminder that I am still here to this very day
Still surviving
Yet struggling through this bleak existence.
They put me in this nursing home,
In a room with four towering walls − my prison.
Where ultimately, I will breathe my last
Where I will dream of a dream
A dream not of the future but a dream of the days gone by
Dreams of the days when I was a young boy,
Full of excitement
aspirations,
and energy.
Dreams of when I was a young man
No longer an adolescent.
Ready and eager for what was to come next, and the goals I wanted to achieve.
A dream, reminiscing into my traumatic past,
A traumatic past of unspeakable horrors
Still clinging with me today.
Making me toss and turn at nightfall.
Yet much as I swing my hardest blow, the nightmares never stop.
I will fight
To the end, until my final curtain call.
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Prithvi Varatharajan
Corridors of light
- Self-reflections lie. The camera lies. What if it – mirror, lens – were to look through, not at? Would we, the subject, obsessed with our so-called self, gullible to its representation, look again?
What if time were rendered in flux? Imagine its almost-suspension in light and darkness, in a coursing medium. Not in a picture that ‘snaps’ it, not in a picture ‘taken’ from its stream, but in a picture made. What if we told the mirror, told the aperture: unmake me? All is obscured here but a few common implements, numbered in fives, which mold or manipulate.
In one image, cloud-broken light invites
your eye over a shadowed arena or stadium,
across dark asphalt at its bottom frame,
then the wrong way up an exit ramp,
sunlight spilling across it — up and into the sky.
In the other, a pool of light falls between cloud,
between a jagged frame of skyscrapers. What I
notice is not their glass, though there is that,
the sky extended there as on strips of canvas —
but a set of steps running up, or down, a concrete tower
up or down into the sky. I imagine the operator
setting their camera there, pointing it up or down. Click.
Go along a windowed aisle, each pane and chromed panel,
each puddle under foot a cinematic fragment. Walk slowly –
no, slower still. There are perspectives here in iron corrugations.
In Smoke, a refraction of a Paul Auster story into film, the owner of a corner shop photographs the intersection it sits on, at : AM each morning. He sets a camera on a tripod at : AM, & ‘click’. When a writer visits, he shows him the album, turns carefully through it, calls it his life’s work.
Swap Harvey Keitel’s street corner for this scene.
Two trains at a sheltered terminus, a concrete walkway between, hosed down and wet, reflective.
Overhead, fluorescent tubes set against dark rafters, running as a highway to the photo’s horizon,
met there by glancing steel carriages and floor. Pin this image in your mind’s eye.
Ask yourself: do film worlds, receding into memory as their reels advance, surpass this dream-image of static reflection? And as you’re drifting into sleep at night, which is truer to twenty-first century life?
Look into my eye now, as I look into your eyes.
Let’s rejoice in this scene, enumerate its contents.
Two children — or one elder — stand in a shop against
a mirror-wall; are seated on an office desk; sit on a grassy verge
before stacked apartments, or before a bar fridge in a darkened room.
One or two of their sets of eyes are shining with consciousness.
One or two of their sets of eyes appear world-weary —
or worldly-wise. One or two of the sets of them appear flat and resisting to my single eye. These are true depictions.
I’ve chosen you for posterity, because you are special. Special how?
Surprising-to-discover- in-the-archives special, special by virtue
of your radically uncommon clothing, the fact of your headdress, your
tight black curls or your glossy skin, the shapes of your eyes perceiving mine.
‘How ought I perceive, lacking taxonomies?’
Here’s an arresting, a meticulous
choreography, in sunlight & smoke.
But you say of its drummed-up dance —
its quick, bright flash, the wiggling stop-start
contraption of its body — look! It’s celebrating me.
Row after row of exotic terracotta witnesses this communion.
Walk to the sandstone bridge over the river, feel yourself
close to home. You may not see birds or fish,
but this is real, and you exist. The cobblestone way
will guide you. Let its first, gentle, half-bend
halt you, momentarily. Look.
An artificial slope, as near as the eye
can see. Smoke, as of matter flaming,
out of sight, beyond the possible.
Look the designated way now.
Your world is a darkened hall.
It has no ceiling: room to dream.
A picture frame, of nothing known.
A light-absorbing void, suggestive.
Obscure marks, as of a creator. A shadow,
cast by all of this, against a flat and ordinary plane.
__
Superfluity
In Superfluity, we take turns to use each song that we play as a springboard to the next one.
We don’t usually do it with images, but we are today.
I don’t think we’ve ever done it with images.
No.
I sometimes do it in my mind with images.
Jade, Kate and Linda from the State Library suggested this Douglas Down image as our kickoff.
You might well be familiar with it by now because I believe Prithvi has just been examining it.
For me, it feels like a vision of a peaceful retreat.
You know, so a fantasy peaceful retreat being offered to a humble, a more humble suburban room.
But the cartoon fantasy is overwhelmed by the reality that fills it and surrounds it and filters through it.
The smudged mirror hanging by a chain at the top of the frame always reminding you of the frame in place.
It seems to me that there’s lots to be said about yearning and aspiration and certainly colonialism too.
The alien landscape overlaying the domestic scene but contained by it, only stretching as far as the edge of the reflection.
To me, it’s a work of art that’s about works of art and their power to transport their imposition of vision, their limitations, but it also reminds me of my own limitations as many of these photos do.
See, I’m overly drawn to art that demonstrates a consciousness of the frame in which it sits.
Art that’s eager to highlight that frame, sometimes for comic effects, sometimes for dramatic.
At the same time, I recognise that as an artist there’s a safety, there’s even a cowardice in that.
You know, “What a clever conceit,” we say, “Oh, how marvellously intricate that design is.”
And at the same time, the artist escapes any kind of emotional vulnerability or detection.
Nothing need be revealed.
Most of the artists I truly admire get to a point in their career where they stop playing those kind of games of semanticism and say, “No, no. Here is something that is from my heart.” So I’d like to respond to the Douglas Down image with this Sue Ford work that places the artist right in the centre of the frame.
Or does it?
Is Sue a completely different person with a completely different camera?
Is there no mirror involved at all?
Oh, postmodernism, you ruin everything! Clem, does it ruin it for you?
It doesn’t Casey.
I’d like to thank you for slinging the Sue Ford portrait in my direction ‘cause I think, well, you know, initially I thought maybe it’s an obvious link to go from that picture to talking about selfies but then maybe not, you know, is it really a selfie?
Did the selfie exist untilyears ago?
But there’s something about her youthful gaze which took me back to being.
And our dad’s an architect so our house was always permanently half renovated.
And I remember being and I learnt to set a timer on my parents’ Olympus OMcamera which was very uncool at school, but I think it’s very cool now.
And I learned to set the timer so I could take what I guess we would now call a selfie.
And at the time I was borrowing a lot of Dolly magazines from the library ‘cause I couldn’t afford to buy them and trying to settle on an identity.
And there’s a photo of me leaning against a recently painted, or possibly even half painted wall in our back lounge, staring off into the middle distance and wondering when I would ever really finish becoming.
So for that act of self fashioning as well as the literal fact of our half finished house, I’m gonna choose this Rennie Ellis shot of a wall in progress.
Which I guess is probably not what people think of, when they think of Rennie Ellis, but I kind of like that unexpected quality.
You know, you think Rennie Ellis, you think fashion show at Chasers.
So that’s where I’m going Christos, where does this Rennie Ellis insulation take you?
Clem, I was really excited when you chose the Rennie Ellis, ‘cause I love that photograph.
I remember when the State Library was showing us the images and that was one of the first I responded to.
There’s something of the uncanny in it.
I mean by that, that there’s something in that, that I find perturbing and chilling.
It seems such an everyday subject, right?
Kind of a house being insulated or being renovated.
But the more you look at the photograph the less ordinary it becomes.
I’m fascinated by it.
It makes me wanna work hard to understand how the photographer got their effect.
I guess that’s why I’m using the word uncanny with the implications of the strange and unknowable.
What is it that perplexes me about this photo?
I think it’s the forensic clarity.
It’s like we’re looking at a documentary image of, you know, one of those shots of a heart operation.
So you’re seeing the body sliced open except in this case the body is the house.
And we’re looking under the skin of the house.
All of that is in the photograph, but it is impossible to engage with an image or with words or sounds for that matter which we find out every week when we’re doing “Superfluity” and playing music.
And not also bringing to the viewing your own memories, your own experiences.
And I know, I realise why the Ellis photograph scares me a little.
It reminds me of being young and a group of us would break into an abandoned house not far from our high school.
And we’d go there to smoke.
We’d smoke cigarettes, we’d smoke marijuana, we just would hang around.
It was like the most ordinary brick veneer house you can imagine in the middle of bog suburbia.
There was nothing to say it was different from any other house on the street except that the grass was too long.
And it was, you know, that piss yellow colour ‘cause no one had mowed it.
But inside the lounge room I remember, that had been fire gutted and the walls in the kitchen and the bedrooms had been bashed in.
So it was like seeing the guts of what was once a home.
My friends would stay there after dark, but I never did.
I thought it was haunted.
I remember once I brought back a guy that I’d picked up in the park and we had sex there and he was a guy from the local tech school down the road.
And so neither of us could go home, right?
We were at that age we couldn’t and we weren’t out.
We couldn’t tell our, our parents, we couldn’t tell our friends.
And we had sex there and it was fast and it was terrific.
And I remember when it finished it was twilight and my excitement was laced with fear.
I felt like the house was watching us.
Of course that’s not in the photograph by Rennie Ellis, I’m putting that, putting it there.
But I don’t think the memory would’ve returned if it hadn’t been for the clarity and the puzzle of the image.
That’s what I think art can do, right?
That’s what it,
it can set off.
I don’t mind being scared but I would like to offer us another version of home, right.
So I’m choosing Alan Jordan’s beautiful image of a Melbourne inner city street.
For me, this photograph is warmth.
It’s there in the closeness of the couple as they’re holding hands walking down the street.
It’s in the intimacy of the row of workers’ terraces almost as if they’re clutching each other in sleep.
But I also recognise that the warmth arises from my nostalgia that reminds me of being a child and walking those very same neighbourhoods.
When I was growing up the commission flats were right at the end of our streets.
And I had a,
a good friend, he was a, his family were refugees from Cyprus and he lived right near the top of the,
the flats and I loved going to visit him there ‘cause I felt like I was flying.
You just looked out of the, the windows and yeah, you were soaring.
I don’t think Alan’s photo is just, sorry, Jordan’s photo, is just nostalgia.
Of course it is the past.
And of course with gentrification the inner city has changed.
Yet the photograph is also defiance for me.
A reminder that history can’t be made to disappear.
There are still migrant couples from across the world who are walking with their kids along the same streets.
They are not just ghosts.
The world can be ghosts and not ghosts.
Our homes can be both those things. My, my childhood relationship to the inner city was a different one to both of yours.
Clem, I know you grew up pretty close in, in fact folks can read all about it in Late Bloomer, Hardie Grant books available at all reputable bookstores.
But I grew up in Greensborough back when it was greener and, and less borough y.
And to me the inner city was always sort of hard commerce and entertainment.
It was a very, sort of, suburban vision of the city if you know what I mean.
It was more fun than dangerous but it was still an arm’s length experience.
As nerdy teenagers, we would take the Hurstbridge Line into Princes Bridge station.
That’s right.
Princes Bridge station folks.
Memories. Platform.
On a Saturday night.
And we’d visit the videogame parlours scattered around the CBD. Invaders, Flashback, Time Zone.
Oh, happy days folks.
Then ride the last train home at midnight.
And as younger kids, the city meant sort of special occasion thrills, fast food, the wide staircase of the Russell Street cinemas, racing ahead of your parents up to Cinema six.
You remember Cinema six?
The backward cinema at the top of the staircase.
Sneakily dipping into the water outside the NGV or in the city square on a hot day.
You know, being young enough that you could throw little kids into the fountain, and not care.
And once in a blue moon or, or so it seemed, a family expedition that was all about the kids down to St Kilda.
After all, if you were gonna treat the inner city as a concrete funfair might as well head to Ground Zero.
Dun dun dun.
So we saw the Giggle Palace and The Rotor, the Big Dipper, the River Caves.
We ate some fairy floss, we felt sick.
And we, and we trundled home.
That was the inner city.
We came, we saw, and if we didn’t conquer it was because it had already been conquered for us, the privileged suburban folk.
So Destiny Deacon’s photo is titled “Whitey’s watchin’”, but Mr Moon isn’t curious at all, he’s just eating everything in sight just for fun.
Thanks Casey.
I really love Destiny Deacon’s work.
So I’m really, I’m really pleased that it’s in the mix here.
And it, I guess my link is also childhood, as you know, I grew up near the CBD in Port Melbourne and we spent a lot of time in St Kilda and so that, that image of Luna Park but also the diversity of St Kilda back in the day, I mean, you wouldn’t know it now.
No.
But, uh I lived there in the early nineties for a year.
You know, it was one of the, the sort of student share house things that you do.
And it was right at the end of that era.
It was just disappearing and it was just being sort of ironed out by the fast food chains.
Mm, yeah. And so that’s the, I mean, in a way, you know, that photo’s impression of St Kilda I think is quite true to life.
And obviously I have different memories of it.
But, so I’m, I’m sort of going with a multi pronged link to “Whitey’s Watchin’.” This Rhonda Senberg’s photo, well it’s a photo of a photo in a way, it’s a photo of a TV set, has obvious thematic links, I guess, or mirrors since it’s by a white artist.
She’s watching two white men of note, two “whiteys” who are, you know, in turn watching the country particularly in Bob Hawke’s case.
But I’m thinking more about memories of childhood and specifically my own memories of learning to press Pause on the VCR and, and trace images off the TV.
And then later I would take photos too like this Ronda Senberg picture.
And I guess in a way, well, you know, I don’t wanna throw my kind under the bus, but you know sometimes we autistic people are accused of not having a very productive imaginations.
And one of the great injustices of my youth as I saw it at the time, ‘cause this was in the idyllic days before we really experienced much woe as a family, which we certainly did later on, was the fact that I’d never won the Saturday morning Disney mailbag competition.
So every week kids would send in their drawings of you know, Mickey Mouse, the Little Mermaid, whatever.
And I thought I’d sent in a series of absolutely stunning artworks which I had traced off the TV.
So I would put the Little Mermaid in, I’d press Pause, you know, I’d, I’d trace a picture.
And then I’d watch in horror as Timmy or Rachel from Whoop Whoop won with what looked like a crayon portrait of Mickey Mouse drawn with their left foot and just rage at the injustice of the world as they were sent, you know, of the latest Barbie dolls.
And I remember mum and dad gently suggesting after, you know, one too many Saturday Disney tantrums that perhaps my habit of tracing cartoons from the TV glass meant that my offerings looked a bit too professional.
Or as Bob Hawke might have put it, nobody likes a show off.
I think Bob Hawke would’ve put it exactly like that, Clem.
There was a temptation once you chose the, Senberg’s photograph to go over to the one of Whitlam, which is, is a, is such an interesting photograph because behind him is a painting of John Kerr and I’m a child of the dismissal.
I was years old in and I remember, you know, my parents downing tools like at the local factories and coming and picking us up to go to the demonstrations and teachers crying at the primary school.
It was a momentous event.
And so I was, I was gonna go there but I’m actually going to go to the Argus photograph.
So there’s an unnamed photographer and it’s an image of a plane, a shadow of a plane as bombings occur.
And I don’t know where it is, I don’t know where this is happening, but the connection I’m making is about history, right.
So in the, Senberg’s photograph you chose it’s pixelated, it’s video.
It, it’s actually the, the photograph, the medium itself is about age and history.
And that is the conundrum of photography.
It is both a documentation of the real and the present.
And it is also something that becomes an artefact.
And I think for me, all I’m assuming, everyone who’s speaking at, in this exhibition is talking about that conflict between history and art and representation and truth.
And the fact is, the first time I looked at that photo when it was sent to us, I’ll be really honest what I responded to was the composition and light.
Just how light works in old photographs.
So talking about the medium, I think there is something different in film to the digital image.
And there’s a luminosity and I was trying to think of how to best describe it.
And I think it’s the difference in light that you have in a shopping mall and that you have in the, in the outdoors.
I’m sure that will change with technology.
And that’s what this photograph, as does the previous photograph, represents to me, that history will keep occurring and things will get old.
And my memories of Whitlam will become as faded to younger generations as images of World War Two and civil wars are to my parents and their generations.
But there is something of the, I don’t know what it is.
The more I look at the photograph of that plane, that shadow and realise what is going on in the world below, and I’m gonna return to ghosts, just as I did before, those ghosts haven’t disappeared.
And it makes me think that there is actually a truth to the old religious understandings that the photograph snaps something of the soul.
I’m not scared of that.
I’m glad that the soul hasn’t disappeared from what we’re viewing.
__
Leah Jing McIntosh
Where the light falls
If a photograph is a mirror, it is a mirror falling towards fracture.
The blur of the fall happens just beyond the frame.
Every photograph carries a trace of this fall — this beyond — the inevitable splintering of time and space.
In recording what is seen, a photo also carries that which is not.
Sometimes you don’t notice the blur.
Sometimes, the photo, fixed, fixes you: your gaze returned and returning.
An indexical practice, photography is endlessly mistaken for a direct register of reality.
Arresting time, the photograph conserves.
To place a photograph into an archive, an exhibition, is to bring it into constellation, new meanings layering over the old.
A photograph sits in generative impossibility.
Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa writes: The image simply cannot be held, cannot be fixed, cannot be fully and finally known, even when it sits neatly in the palms of our hands.
Or, perhaps John Berger will move you.
He writes: “When we find a photograph meaningful, we are lending it a past and a future.” If a photograph is a mirror, who do you find gazing back at you?
If I asked you, “who does the lending, whose pasts appear, whose future is foretold?” Would you be able to tell me without pause — Or maybe: if I asked; where does the light fall, would you laugh, shrug, say: all around us.
How does a photographer capture the light falling on her own face and how does it fall on her subject?
Or — if we disregard the light —
— where does the photographer stand?
Over their subject, their body looming over, looking down —
— Or do they kneel below?
I am interested in who is afforded grace, who appears only in protest — or who is allowed a gentle domesticity — I would like to know who decides where the light falls / if it will keep falling / if it ever fell at all or maybe it is simpler than this.
Maybe the question is, whose faces mirror your own?
These faces are entered into the archive as testimony – as trace – as truth.
Out of the photographs in this exhibition, this portrait by Rennie Ellis captures me.
It appears in the Library’s collection under the title, “Interior of tattoo parlour.” A note on the record reads, “Title devised by cataloguer.” What compels me is the anonymity of these subjects, their reduction to nameless parts of the parlour interior.
It is unknown if this is a careless elision of the artist or of the archive.
So Ellis captures the gaze — but the gazing subject is not named.
What I want to know lies beyond the frame.
I want to know who the subject was to the artist, but the information is missing and all I am left with is this.
If I am to lend a past and a future to this photograph, I would say that his gaze holds two things, intertwined — Resignation, and defiance.
He seems resigned to being photographed.
But he holds the gaze of the camera.
And now he is here, in the archive, and now he is here, on the wall,.And now he is here, defiant.
If a photograph is a mirror, it is a mirror falling towards fracture.
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Alice Skye
- You don’t know this Country like I do.
He said, “I could take you out into the plains.”
Couldn’t tell you any names, just Blak faces, the ones we claim.
The ones that were midwives, to my great greats, he said, “My family’s been here for generations since before Federation.”
But what about the clans and nations where I come from? You don’t know this Country like I do.
I feel it in my body, the way a smell will take me back home.
The way I make more sense in freshwater.
Aboriginal shearer, farmer’s daughter.
The bird’s circle overhead as mum leaves food out for them.
I know they’ve been singing the same songs to my Countrymen.
Still, maybe Scottish-Australian, think he knows what’s best, but how can I know what happened when I can’t hear it from you? They’ll never know this Country like we do.
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Pasifika Storytellers Collective
Bridget Inder
Fertile Land
Simpatico
I raise my voice in simpatico with those who went before
Ancestor
My Ancestor’s skin is made of dirt, trees, rocks and rivers
Footfall
My footfall is a beat, as I walk on this land and strain to hear its song
Home
Although I walk on land which is not my own, I find myself walking home
Mountains
These mountains always at your back
Skin
It is our skin, our bones, our hair, our blood, we take it with us
Steps
With each step I announce my presence and seek quiet permission to take another
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Sēini F Taumoepeau
Vaiola
Vai Tapu
Vaiola
Vaiola
fakatapu
ki he ta’e-hā-mai
mo e kelekele
‘oku ne tauhi
ki tautolu
kae ‘ata’atā ke tau lea
kae ‘ata’atā ke tau lea
fakatapu
kihe kainga
a e fonuani
mo ‘ulu motu’a ‘eiki
kae ‘ata’atā ke tau lea
kae ‘ata’atā ke tau lea
kaytetye chant
tō ē to’a
kau tu’u ē to’a
tō ē to’a
kau tu’u ē to’a
kaytetye chant
tō ē to’a
kau tu’u ē to’a
tō ē to’a
kau tu’u ē to’a
Vai Tapu
Vaiola
Vaiola
fakatapu
ki he ta’e-hā-mai
mo e kelekele
‘oku ne tauhi
ki tautolu
kae ‘ata’atā ke tau lea
kae ‘ata’atā ke tau lea
fakatapu
kihe kainga
a e fonuani
mo ‘ulu motu’a ‘eiki
kae ‘ata’atā ke tau lea
kae ‘ata’atā ke tau lea
kaytetye chant
tō ē to’a
kau tu’u ē to’a
tō ē to’a
kau tu’u ē to’a
kaytetye chant
tō ē to’a
kau tu’u ē to’a
tō ē to’a
kau tu’u ē to’a
English Version
Sacred Water
Living Waters
reflective pools of life at the threshold of death
we make sacred
all intangible forces
and the earthly soil
which nourishes
us all
who allow us to bring forth sound
who allow us to bring forth words
we make sacred
the close relations
of these lands
the traditional custodians who hold authority
who allow us to bring forth sound
who allow us to bring forth words
Kaytetye Chant
as one warrior falls
another warrior stands
as one warrior falls
another warrior stands
Kaytetye Chant
as one warrior falls
another warrior stands
as one warrior falls
another warrior stands
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Jessica Paraha
When home is an unfurled fern
The first bird to find our family when we were born was a pigeon.
The nurse said it wasn’t sanitary to have a pigeon in the delivery room, so she sent it away.
The second was a blue cockatiel.
Dad named him Neville after the street our house stood on.
When we think of that house, it is never a winter memory.
It is always: summer and storms; birds and their babies;
bees in the clover;
bare feet; sunflowers;
an old frangipani tree.
Mum took three cuttings from those branches when we finally had to move away. One for each of us.
When we recall home, we know there is a big room where we all sleep together.
When we were a lot smaller, we came to this place for the first time.
The gravel hurt the fleshy underside of our feet when we ran across the carpark with no shoes.
Our Aunty turned to dad and said, “it’s like she never left”.
We were back on a plane to Sydney a few weeks later.
What if those big rooms in the sky became the sky.
Opened up wide and cold in the breadth of the ocean to create a glass-walled expanse that stretched to the length of our needs like a big fishbowl.
No candles or light bulbs, the sun would do all that work for us.
Through this door in my mind, are the ribs and lungs and hair of my home’s home’s home.
It lives in all seasons, tucked inside the spiral of a perpetually curled fern leaf.
Babies are born here behind this door.
Bodies die here, lie here behind this door.
It breathes, changes shape, finds a way to cater to us all.
Still, it stands just beyond the other’s imaginings while they lament the unfolding.
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Marita Davies
Land
Am I landing?
or invading?
Me with my skin tinged with white, with suitcases and shoes.
Shoes that I got from the shopping centre.
From Target.
Me with my I-Matung language, me with my white nose.
People looking through the fence at the airport.
Now I’m the target.
Everyone watches us land all with the same brown eyes as mine, barefoot, laughing, long hair, flat noses, all asking each other...
Has she landed? Or is she stranded? Delivered by Air Nauru.
She’s walking with that Tabiteuean woman.
What was her name?
The one who married the I-Matung.
Are they her I-Matung babies?
They look stranded. Feet un-sanded.
They’ve landed with Air Nauru.
Better give them the room with the view.
Let’s go to Betio and see the big guns.
Rusting on the ocean side. See them?
They built them for the war. Not ours.
Theirs.
Planes all landed in. Fighting for land.
Ours. Not theirs.
Yes, you can climb them.
Be careful where you stand.
They call it the Battle of Tarawa.
Bloody, bloody Tarawa they say.
They all just arrived.
We waited.
They turned up, then waded.
They read the tides wrong.
Bulldozed our palms to build bunkers for their arms.
Landed. Disbanded. Commanded.
Crashed into our sand.
Died on our land.
They left these guns here.
Yes you can climb them.
Be careful where you stand.
Watch out for the tides.
Should I stand here?
Where do I put my hands?
Do I put my feet like this?
Watch out for the tides?
Maybe I’ll stand aside.
Learn our language! You must learn it! Learn the dance! You must! Learn to weave! You must! I feel awkward.
Am I taking? Or faking?
Or staking my claim?
Neiko, look at your hands.
Those thumbs….Se! Terira can weave with those thumbs.
Why can’t you?
Weaving. Weaving. Weaving.
Practice. Practice.
Can I weave?
Should I weave?
Should I leave?
Maybe this is what I’m doing?
Crashing onto land.
Feeling divided.
I assumed I was uninvited.
I don’t know where to land.
You say I belong to it.
Which land?
That one?
I can’t see it.
Maybe where I belong is to stay hovering above.
Looking at the land.
Parachute my way in.
Or maybe I nosedive.
Crash land.
Am I hovering?
Or bothering?
Stop staring Neiko! You stare like a Marakei woman!
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Mele-Ane Havea and Veisinia Tonga
Reflection
This photo was taken late in your lives.
What prompted it?
You were the first generation to be sent overseas for education.
How did it feel to be alone in the world for the first time?
Away from clan and family support.
How did it change the way you saw Tonga on your return?
Did your experience overseas affect the way you raised your children?
Did it free you from the constraints of our traditional hierarchies?
Do you see how that exists in us today?
When your parents went to PNG to work for the church, did they go as Christians, as fellow Islanders, or as Tongans?
What was it like for you to be separated from your siblings?
Your culture?
What did being Tongan mean to you when you were far from home?
How did your time in PNG forever change the way you saw the world?
Why was this photo taken?
Was it your wedding anniversary?
Was it taken in the family farmhouse or at a studio?
Your eldest daughter was the only one to travel away from home.
She felt the distance for the rest of her life.
What was it like for you?
Your great-great-granddaughter is named after you.
What characteristics of yours do you hope she inherits?
Would you be surprised to know that the relationships you forged then are still being maintained by your descendants?
Did the weight of responsibility sit heavily?
What kept you up at night?
What did you fear?
Would you have fought so hard to educate your children in the Western system if you knew that it would scatter them around the globe so far from home?
Could you have imagined that your progeny would now include Tongan mixed with White Australian, Solomon Islanders, Greek, Scottish, Dutch, Swiss, Iranian, Kurdish, Lebanese and Sudanese?
Did you think there would be a cost for the opportunities you created?
How do you want us, the current generation, to continue your legacy?
Who are you?
Parents and first child?
Were you the first generation to come to Australia?
Where did your ancestors come from?
Did you travel from far?
Did they come with you?
What are your names?
Who named you?
Did your name come with you from the place before?
Did your parents tell you stories of their old home?
Did you get teased at school?
Did you have to forget your culture to survive?
Do you remember the day your mother bathed you in the Birrarung?
Was your mother anxious that there was no water because of the drought?
Did you unknowingly pick up her anxiety?
Did your mother make a game out of this time?
Is her face an image that invokes joyful memories in your heart?
Did you remember it as a fun time with your brother?
Did you make friends down by the river?
How did this time of drought change your mother?
What important lessons stayed with you from this time, if any?
Are your descendants still careful not to waste water?
What are the stories that will be remembered about you?
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Irrawaddy Matuauto-Epa
Declined Invitation
The community they shut out, keep out is the same community that will invite you in, keep you in.
Sky high, floors on floors, people on people. Migrants, immigrants, placing them in the sky, collectivists.
Those in the sky shared, laughed, loved, and took care of each other.
The smell of garlic and onion frying with a whole array of spices that changed from Mediterranean, to Pasifika, to Asian.
You look at us and see drugs, I look at you and see unhappiness and individualism.
And while I will always invite you in, you will shut me out.
Bricks on bricks, centuries on centuries, symbolising the colonial context of forcing a spiritual cleansing on us.
These divine intended buildings that offer refuge, peace, and harmony for some.
Yet for others have instigated pain whose trauma can echo for eternities.
You look at us and tell us that we must change, and do away with our laws and rights of our spirituality.
I look at you and see you want to now use my prayer and meditation through your exotic agenda.
And while I will always invite you in, you will take only the parts you like.
High walls to cover the high building, built with intention to be unbreakable and be kept in.
Voices loud and silent of torment, depression, and guilt.
You see recidivism and choice, I see a system that fails constantly.
And while I will always invite you in, you will only seek to judge and punish.
Cultural halls, a safe space away from those that deem us as different.
Aged faux leather worn chairs, brown teak laminate tables holding birthday celebrations, gatherings of aiga, siva fundraisers, and higher deposits to be paid and returned after leaving the hall key in the mailbox.
And while I will always invite you in, you will only see me as a different culture that needs a different hall to you.
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Lay the Mystic
Old wind
- I don’t know
a lot of Tongan words, but matangi, wind, is one of them.
The rising and descending winds never stop spinning, rolling, wild, falling, free.
And lapping planets up in the same kind of here and now, kind of like there and a long time ago.
Those winds are where all my shyest grandmas put their secrets.
And I hear the wind, moving heavy with her wishes when I’m quiet, and still, and here.
Soft wind holds me suspended and wishing ‘cause someone too long ago to know me put a wish on the wind for all of her kids’ kids.
And the wind’s just been waiting for one of us to live it.
Matangi rises with wishes older than me then sinks under the sunset with all of mine.
And we work our wishes into life across time, here, and here, and here.
Loving all across the wind.
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Grace Vanilau
O le lagona o le Tinā | A mama’s gaze
Lullaby:
Moe moe pepe
Tumutumu le la’au
A agi le matagi
E lue atu ma toe sau
A gau le lālā
Pa’ū le moega
Malie oe pepe
I lau fa’aluega
Spoken word
O le malaga o lenei tinā
e lē faigofie : :
O mo’omo’oga o lo’u loto
E fia maua se filemu
A’o ou nofonofo
ma fa’asolosolo o’u mafaufauga
Va’ai atu ile lāgoto
Oute tatalo atu
E fia maua se sa’olotoga
Afai e agi mai matagi o le olaga
E manatua pea oe
i lo’u agaga
Afai e agi mai matagi vale
o le olaga
Taofi mau pea oe
I lo’u agaga
Taofi mau pea oe
I lo’u agaga :=:
Taofi mau pea oe
I lo’u agaga
Vocal climb
Ancestors’ whispers
Pese
Sau ia
Pese
Sau ia
Sssh moe pepe
English translation
Lullaby:
Rock a bye baby
On the treetops
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock
When the bough breaks
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
Cradle and all
Spoken word
This mama’s journey
has not been easy
The greatest desire of my heart
Is that we may know peace
As I sit, inhabit breath
memories flood through me
I gaze at each sunset
Praying that one day
It will dawn Freedom
When the storms of life blow
I will remember you always
In my spirit
When the tempests rage
through this life
I will anchor you forever
In my spirit
I will anchor you forever
In my spirit
I will anchor you forever
In my spirit
Vocal climb
Ancestors’ whispers
Sing
Come on
Sing
Come on
sleep my baby
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