This week on Friday Round Up - one month to go before the 27th Visa pour l'image, Juno Gemes' Spirit Maps to open in Canberra, the winner of this year's Ian Parry Scholarship, @everydayafrica and Andrew Quilty wins Walkley Best Freelance Journalist of the Year.
Festival:
Dinosaurs and Nostalgia
Visa pour l'Image 2015
"Our recent statements defending ethical practices in photojournalism triggered some lively reactions, and we must have heard every argument possible. The world is on the move, so it’s time for photojournalism to move too. We are allegedly the protectors of an old-fashioned, narrow-minded vision of photojournalism. That’s quite a charge!
"Such scathing criticism neither concerns us nor upsets us. Au contraire! We see these comments as expressions of encouragement, bolstering our belief in a vision of photojournalism which we have been advocating, in no uncertain terms, over the last 27 festivals.
"How and why should photojournalism change? Is the goal to take staged pictures in studio conditions? Do we want “still life” images to conjure up scenes of war? “You know, all those pictures of war and famine look the same in the end.” What sort of cynical, mindless argument is that? Do we hear that kind of nonsense about sports photos? Well, too bad for us!
"When you look at the wealth of photography we have for the 2015 festival, when you look at what’s coming onto the market (which, as we’ve said so often in so many debates, is getting smaller every year), when you look at the new names appearing, with new talent and more energy, when you wander around Perpignan in September, then you realize that photojournalism is certainly not going to disappear. And that’s good news.
"So, long live nostalgia! Long live the dinosaurs! And welcome to the real world." Jean-François Leroy 2015.
"So, long live nostalgia! Long live the dinosaurs! And welcome to the real world." Jean-François Leroy 2015.
This year's program features a diverse range of exhibitions that demonstrate the incredible breadth of photojournalism stories being told. Look out for the preview on Photojournalism Now - 28th August. Until then, here are a few images to give you a sense of what's in store.
Somali refugees whose makeshift shelters were amongst the dozens of houses and shops destroyed by soldiers acting on orders from the Somali government. Sarkusta refugee camp, southern Mogadishu, March 4, 2015. © Mohamed Abdiwahab / AFP
Laurel did not know that this would be her last meal: her famous eggplant parmigianino recipe, made specially for her by her son Matthew. Chappaqua, NY, December 2014. © Nancy Borowick
Laurine (17) and her son Thiméo (4 months). They live with Laurine’s father in Fourmies. January 2015. © Viviane Dalles
Winner of the 2014 Canon Female Photojournalist Award, supported by Elle Magazine
Nepal, May 1, 2015. © Omar Havana / Getty Images
Kumari Dangol with special festive make-up. It is not just outside appearances that change for festivals; former Kumaris say they felt bigger and stronger, and could feel heat radiating from their foreheads. © Stephanie Sinclair for National Geographic Magazine
Bong County Ebola Treatment Unit, Suakoko, Liberia, October 2014. Health workers entering the high-risk zone to do their morning rounds, removing waste from the previous night. Then a second team enters, with medical staff and health workers bringing food and water, doing blood tests, checking patients and providing medical care. © Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images Reportage / The New York Times
Exhibition: Canberra
Juno Gemes - Spirit Maps
Visual advocacy for Justice for Indigenous Australians has been the hallmark of Juno Gemes’ artistic practice. Born in Budapest, Hungary Juno settled in Australia in 1949 has spent more than four decades using creative media to agitate for shared knowledge and cultural understanding. Her practice has resulted in a body of photographs, film and ephemera that, although superficially disparate, are bound through the common threads of critique and compassion. Gemes is an observer and a listener. Her images arise from careful conversation, from intuitive felt connections with her subjects and their stories.
A recent collaboration with master photogravure printer Lothar Osterburg at his 3rd St Studio in Brooklyn, New York, produced this group of images that reinterrogate the surfaces and resonances of the photographs into a timelessness and variation of tonal modalities which accords with emotional resonances of these two iconic images. Here the images confirm a sense of immortality of spirit and the continuity of people and culture in this remote island community.
"To me Juno Gemes photos capture the world of Australia’s Aborigines in not so as much a documentary mode, as on an emotional level...Working with Juno in my studio was a joy. She was excited to be able to work in the traditional dustgrain copperplate photogravure process as developed by Fox Talbot and refined Carl Kliç in the 19th century. She approached the proofing and printing with an open mind I rarely have experienced with photographers," says Lothar Osterburg.
Juno Gemes - Spirit Maps
Visual advocacy for Justice for Indigenous Australians has been the hallmark of Juno Gemes’ artistic practice. Born in Budapest, Hungary Juno settled in Australia in 1949 has spent more than four decades using creative media to agitate for shared knowledge and cultural understanding. Her practice has resulted in a body of photographs, film and ephemera that, although superficially disparate, are bound through the common threads of critique and compassion. Gemes is an observer and a listener. Her images arise from careful conversation, from intuitive felt connections with her subjects and their stories.
A recent collaboration with master photogravure printer Lothar Osterburg at his 3rd St Studio in Brooklyn, New York, produced this group of images that reinterrogate the surfaces and resonances of the photographs into a timelessness and variation of tonal modalities which accords with emotional resonances of these two iconic images. Here the images confirm a sense of immortality of spirit and the continuity of people and culture in this remote island community.
Juno's works are held in collections including The National Gallery of Australia, The National Portrait Gallery, Macquarie University Art Gallery Collection and in the Collection Klugue Rhue Museum at The University of Virginia USA.
(Above text adapted from the introduction by Charleyene Olgivie in the catalogue for Juno Gemes - Spirit Maps).
Juno Gemes - Spirit Maps
Opens 9th August - Juno will be giving a talk at the opening.
On until 30 August
Manning Clark House Canberra
Juno Gemes - Spirit Maps
Opens 9th August - Juno will be giving a talk at the opening.
On until 30 August
Manning Clark House Canberra
Winner Ian Parry Scholarship
Yuyang Liu has been awarded this year’s Ian Parry scholarship for his work documenting the lives of the severely mentally ill and their families in China. He told the New York Times Lens Blog that he was drawn to the story, which was shot in the Guangdong Province, because the mentally ill and their families are often overlooked, if not completely ignored. “This is a group of people who are invisible in normal society. We can’t see them in schools or workplaces, and we don’t see their families.” His photographs depict the families as they struggle to care for their loved ones. Read the full interview and see more images on Lens Blog
Everyday Africa Education
@everydayafrica - Austin Merrill and Peter DiCampo have expanded into education. Find out more about what these Pulitzer Center grantee journalists are up to, and how you can participate, here.
Photo: Jana Ašenbrennerová
Photo: Jana Ašenbrennerová
Andrew Quilty
Walkley Best Freelance Journalist of the Year
Multi-award winning Australian photojournalist Andrew Quilty talks with Kyla Woods about his journey on Blink.com.
Gul Ahmad, an infant boy suffering from acute malnutrition, is covered by his mother’s scarf while being treated in the therapeutic feeding centre ward at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) administered Boost Hospital in Lashkar Gah, the capial of Helamnd Province in southern Afghanistan. ©Andrew Quilty/ OCULI
