Friday Round Up - 25th November, 2016

This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up it's all about climate change. With the news that the NASA Climate Research centre may close with the new Republican Government in the US, I wanted to show a selection of images that provide irrefutable proof that we are wrecking the planet. I show them despite the fact that we've seen many images like these before. I show them despite the fact that it seems no one in power actually gives a damn. Why bother? Because if we let our voices be silenced, if we throw up our hands in dismay and walk away, 'they' the not so faceless, but immensely powerful, selfish and ignorant men (and it is largely men that are climate skeptics) go unchallenged.

There are many photographers doing amazing work to bring the story of climate change to the public. This week features works by Kerstin Langenberger, Michael Robinson Chavez, Peter McBride, Randy Olson, Mayeta Clark and an astonishing, and worrying series of comparative images by Gary Braasch. What these photos show is that climate change affects everything we need to survive as a species - food, water, air. No one can escape this. Not even the rich, fat cats that think they are above all else.

Special Feature:
Climate Change

(C) Kerstin Langenberger - A starving polar bear in Arctic

(C) Michael Robinson Chavez


(C) Michael Robinson Chavez


(C) Gary Braasch

(C) Peter McBride - Colorado River runs dry

(C) Peter McBride - Colorado River runs dry

(C) Randy Olson, Pakistan

(C) Randy Olson for National Geographic, East Africa

(C) Mayeta Clark, PNG - two million starve a PNG food bowl dries up 2016

(C) Gary Braasch

(C) Gary Braasch

(C) Gary Braasch

(C) Gary Braasch

(C) Gary Braasch

Friday Round Up - 17 April, 2015

This week on Friday Round Up it's all about photography and climate change, with the first Art+Climate=Change Festival to be held in Melbourne featuring a range of exhibitions.

Climate Change Photos* - My Pick:

Photo Courtesy WWF*

(C) Nacho Doce/Reuters*

Drought Australia 2007 (C) Rodney Dekker*

Festival:

ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2015

This inaugural festival, presented by CLIMARTE, features 25 exhibitions as well as keynote lectures and public forums.

The Arts have long played a role in recording the human condition and its relationship to nature. As debate around what to do about climate change continues to be bogged down in politics, artists around the world are uniting to bring the issue wider attention.

Earlier this year we saw the launch of #Everydayclimatechange, a movement of photographers keen to draw focus on the perils of doing nothing about environmental degradation.

Now it’s ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2015 presented by CLIMARTE: arts for a safer climate, an independent charity founded by Australians Guy Abrahams, Fiona Armstrong and Deborah Hart. All three are passionate about enlisting the arts to help affect cultural change and they've brought together a formidable program to engage the community.

The intention of ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2015 is to “inform, engage and inspire, delivering an expansive and stimulating series of events that can help lead us towards a creative, just and sustainable future.” The Festival's official dates are 11 April to 17 May, but many exhibition are on longer - see below. 

Keynote speaker: David Buckland

The University of Melbourne is the Principal Knowledge Partner of Climarte’s program and will host a keynote lecture by David Buckland of Cape Farewell who will "narrate 14 years of Cape Farewell’s ambition to place climate centre stage. Using the notion of expedition as a model to interrogate the future, Buckland will showcase some of the art produced by over 320 artists who have risen to the climate challenge; and visioned, through their creative endeavour, why we must engage in building transformative, dynamic and sustainable societies." This lecture is free, but you must register. 

ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2015 - Exhibitions

In Debt: Saving Seeds 

(C) Dave Jones

(C) Steven Rhall

Photographers Dave Jones and Steven Rhall (above) respond to the Australian Grains Genebank

24 April - 21 June

Grassy Woodlands

(C) Caroline Young
Until 27 July 2015

Both the above exhibitions are on at Centre For Contemporary Photography
404 George Street, Fitzroy

Fresh! 

(C) Chris Massey

Craft, 31 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
3 April – 30 May 2015
(Mixed media exhibition)

Nature/Revelation

(C) Ansel Adams The Tetons and theSnakeRiver Wyoming 1942

(C) Berndnaut Smilde, Nimbus D'Aspremont 2012

Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne

800 Swanston Street, Parkville
Until 5 July
(Mixed media exhibition)

The Paper Canary, The Derwent Project, 

and the Hanging Garden 

(C) David Stephenson and Martin Walch 

MARS Gallery, 7 James Street, Windsor
30 April – 24 May

Earth Matters: Contemporary Photographers 

in the Landscape

(C) Chris Laing

(C) Les Walkling

(C) Peter Eastway

(C) Tony Hewitt


(C) Chris Thompson

Monash Gallery of Art
860 Ferntree Gully Rd, Wheelers Hill
Until 3 May 2015

Chris Jordan – Intolerable Beauty: 

Facing the Mirror of Mass Consumption 

(C) All image Chris Jordan

Sophie Gannon Gallery, 2 Albert Street, Richmond
28 April – 9 May 2015

Theatrum Orbis Terrarum

(C) Marjolijn Dijkman, Theatrum Orbis Terraru’, 2005-ongoing 

West Space
Level 1, 225 Bourke St, Melbourne, VIC 3000
Until 9 May 2015

Discounting the Future

(C) David Buckland and Amy Balkin, Discounting the Future, Ice Texts Series, 2010

Melbourne School of Design, Dulux Gallery
Ground Level, Melbourne School of Design Building (133), Spencer Road,
The University of Melbourne
Until 10 May 2015

Rosemary Laing: Weathering

(C) All images Rosemary Laing

Heide Museum of Modern Art, 7 Templestowe Road, Bulleen
Until 31 May 2015

* These images are not part of the festival 

Friday Round Up - 20 March, 2015

This week on Friday Round Up an interview with Russian photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva, Asher Milgate's Survivors, the Photograph and Australia (AGNSW), Earthmatters (MGA), Inspiration by Design (SLV) and Derryn Tal at Stanley Street.

Interview:
Evgenia Arbugaeva 

(C) Evgenia Arbugaeva - Weather Man

The remote reaches of our planet hold fascination for many. From the comfort of our heated homes we harbour romanticised views of explorers and scientists working in fantastical locations like the Arctic. With the Northern Lights dancing across the sky, endless plains of snow and ice and darkness descending for half the year, nature paints a thrilling canvas that allows the imagination to soar.


(C) Evgenia Arbugaeva - Weather Man



(C) Evgenia Arbugaeva - Weather Man

Photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva knows this canvas well. She grew up in Tiksi in the Republic of Yakutia, a northern Russian seaport located on the coast of the Laptev Sea. Her father, a breeder of rare Eastern Siberian Huskies, invested in his children a love of nature and adventure, a spirit that today informs her choices on what to photograph...(to read the full interview and see more pictures please click on the Feature Articles link at the top of the blog).

Evgenia Arbugaeva's Weather Man is currently showing in Paris at In Camera Gallery until 14 April, 2015 and will also feature in this year's Photo de Mer Festival in France 3 April to 3 May. 

Exhibitions:

Dubbo:

Asher Milgate - SURVIVORS

Aunty Joyce
This exhibition of recorded oral histories and black and white portraits features the Elders and Elders-in-waiting who grew up on the Nanima Mission in Wellington, 350km west from Sydney at the junction of the Macquarie and Bell Rivers.

Photographer Asher Milgate, who was born in Wellington,  says he returned to his home town after living in Sydney with a new perspective on his local community. Turning his focus to the importance of documenting the history of the area's Indigenous people, Milgate has created an invaluable resource that will serve generations to come. 

Milgate says, “This project has humbled me a lot. I am a white Australian and I grew up amongst these people and in this place. I couldn’t see things clearly as a child, but now as an adult I have more perspective. I went to school and played football with many of the grandsons and sons of the people I interviewed. They are my friends. This gave me some confidence to contact the people I interviewed for this project. I wanted to record and share their stories”.

“Being a local non-Indigenous person and being granted the permission and acceptance to work so closely with the community to produce a work of this kind, I believe is the start of reconciliation in our community. A grass roots development that I hope will bring together our whole community by creating understanding, respect and acceptance.”

Denise Kelly

Neville Brown

Paul West

Uncle Billy Lou

Wayne Carr

Milgate hopes Survivors will “help retain Indigenous oral history…My work seeks to preserve the beliefs of these great people, their legends and traditions”.

Until 10 May 2015

Western Plains Cultural Centre

Dubbo, NSW (393km west of Sydney)
(C) All images Asher Milgate

Sydney:

The Photograph and Australia

Olive Cotton, Only to taste the warmth, the light, the wind c1939

At a time when photography is ubiquitous, a new exhibition The Photograph and Australia at the Art Gallery of NSW, gives us an opportunity to look at the medium’s evolution in this country and how photography has shaped our historical narrative. Images date from 1840s to now, with 400 photographs, and more than 120 artists including Morton Allport, Richard Daintree, Paul Foelsche, Samuel Sweet, JJ Dwyer, Charles Bayliss, Frank Hurley, Harold Cazneaux, Olive Cotton, Max Dupain, Sue Ford, Carol Jerrems, Tracey Moffatt, Robyn Stacey, Ricky Maynard, Anne Ferran and Patrick Pound.

David Moore, Migrants arriving in Sydney 1966

Nicholas Claire, Fairy Scene at the Landslip Black's Spur, c1878

Mervyn Bishop, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam pours soil into the  

hands of traditional land owner Vincent Lingiari, Northern Territory 1975

Anne Zahalka, artist #13 (Rosemary Laing) 1990 from the series Artists

The Photograph and Australia
21 March - 8 June, 2015
Art Gallery of NSW

Melbourne:

Earthmatters

(C) Tony Hewitt

Part of Art+Climate=Change 2015, Earth matters: contemporary photographers in the landscape is an exhibition that features landscape photography by the likes of Anne Ferran, Silvi Glattauer, Siri Hayes, Harry Nankin, David Tatnall and Christian Thompson. There is also a new installation by Ninety Degrees Five, a collective of five Australian artists including Tony Hewitt, Peter Eastway and Les Walking.

(C) Les Walkling

(C) Peter Eastway

(C) Chris Laing

(C) ChristianThompson

Art+Climate=Change 2015 is a Melbourne-wide Festival comprising various art exhibitions, forums, and talks designed to engage the public in action on climate change. www.artclimatechange.org

On until 3 May, 2015
Monash Gallery of Art

Inspiration by Design: Word and Image

French photograph of Quant models 

This exhibition from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London celebrates five centuries of artistry in print and includes a selection of photography, graphic design, fashion, magazines and rare illustrated books. For the first time in Australia.

Fentons Hardships in the Camp

Yohji Yamamoto

China Pictorial magazine 1971

20 Mach to 15 June, 2015
State Library of Victoria

Sydney:

Derryn Tal - Reactions

Chemical Cocktail

Sydney abstract contemporary artist Derryn Tal’s latest exhibition Reactions is on at Stanley Street Gallery. Featuring mixed media works with photography and video, Tal says her focus is on the “discovery and orchestration of reactions between mediums”.


Orchestra of Alchemy 

Molecular Magic

Melting Moment

Until 11th April
Stanley Street Gallery
1/52-54 Stanley Street
Darlinghurst