Archive for the ‘Speaking on Photography’ Category
THE PHOTOBOOK CLUB: Box of Books Event – Toowoomba!
The Photobook Club’s BOX of BOOKS arrives in Toowoomba
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In 2013, and now in 2014, a box of photobooks will be traveling over 30,000 miles, stopping off at each of the Photobook Club branches around the world in order to promote discussion of the physical photobook.
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Now, The Box of Books is in Toowoomba —- Queensland, Australia.
As part of the LAST DAY of the ICONS on ICONS show at the Cobb+Co Museum in Toowoomba featuring the work of John Elliott, Graham Burstow, David Seeto Victoria Cooper (photobooks) and Doug Spowart – a special viewing of the THE PHOTOBOOK CLUB’s BOX of BOOKS will be made available. Come and sit with some of the world’s best photobooks and turn the pages – and release the narrative that each book contains.
THE DATE: Between 1 – 3pm, January 27 – The AUSTRALIA DAY Holiday
THE VENUE: The Cobb+Co Museum, 27 Lindsay Street, Toowoomba.
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A small charge of $5 is being made to cover postage to the Boxes’ next destination in Auckland New Zealand.
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The book viewing and discussions will take place between 1-3pm. The Museum’s coffee shop is open for lunch as well as drinks and snacks throughout the afternoon until 4pm.
Take a road trip into the country – Visitors to the Cobb+Co Museum from outside the Toowoomba Region will gain FREE admittance if they advise that they are attending this special event.
This Photobook Club BOX OF BOOKS event is coordinated by Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper of the Centre for Regional Arts Practice.
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Cobb+Co Museum – Icons on Icons events
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What’s in the Box?
A big thanks to Mack Books (London), Schilt Publishing (Amsterdam) and also to Filipe Casaca who have all contributed books to this project. If you are a publisher or photographer who would like a book to be included in ‘Box of Books #2′ then please get in touch. The following books were chosen for the discussions of content, narrative and physical properties that I hope they will encourage – Matt from the Photobook Club
Another Language
Mårten Lange
(Mack, 2012)
The blurb: Combining images of flora, fauna and natural phenomena in an intimate and beautifully crafted book, Lange teases out a subtle narrative – a meteor crashes, a landmass is visible and a distant planet occupies the final page – but the book is more akin to the workings of a scientist collecting specimens. Together the photographs create a cryptic and heterogeneous index of nature, with recurring shapes, patterns and texture, where the clarity and simplicity of the individual photographs contrasts with the enigmatic whole.
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Blue Mud Swamp
Filipe Casaca
(Self published, 2012)
The blurb: (Filipe Casaca) Blue Mud Swamp. The shoreline, hot and humid, is a postcard that attracts and invites Men to settle where the land meets the Yellow Sea. However, the reality is dissonant. Although surrounded by natural beauty, beaches and entertainment facilities, the city and its urban spaces transmits, as a whole, a feeling of artificiality. In some cases the abundance created a certain degradation and abandonment. With a splendor that takes us back to a recent past, a certain melancholy is present, as happens with all that was new, colorful and perfect but perished with time.
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Interrogations
Donald Webber
(Schilt, 2012)
The blurb: Interrogations is the result of [Webber’s] personal quest to uncover the hidden meaning of the bloody 20th Century. In dialogue with writer Larry Frolick – whose own ancestors had been decimated in the final months of WW II – Weber insistently and provocatively addresses his questions both to the living survivors and to the ghosts of the State’s innumerable victims, resurrecting their final hours by taking their point of view, and performing a kind of incantatory meditation over their private encounters with Power.
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Lick Creek Line
Ron Jude
(Mack, 2012)
The blurb: Ron Jude’s new book, Lick Creek Line, extends and amplifies his ongoing fascination with the vagaries of photographic empiricism, and the gray area between documentation and fiction. In a sequential narrative punctuated by contrasting moments of violence and beauty, Jude follows the rambling journey of a fur trapper, methodically checking his trap line in a remote area of Idaho in the Western United States. Through converging pictures of landscapes, architecture, an encroaching resort community, and the solitary, secretive process of trapping pine marten for their pelts, Lick Creek Line underscores the murky and culturally arbitrary nature of moral critique.
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Liquid Land
Rena Effendi
(Schilt, 2012)
The blurb: (Rena Effendi) Next to my father’s dead but iridescent butterflies, my photographs show life in some of the world’s most polluted areas, near Baku, where I was born and grew up. In my mind, the contrasting images gravitate towards each other – as I have to my father. Since working on this book I have gotten to know him much better than when he was alive. Salty Waters is the translation from Persian of the ‘Ab-sheuran’ Peninsula; in and around Baku, its main city, the earth is breathing with petroleum fumes, as oil oozes to the surface, turning it liquid. The Caspian Sea hugs the eagle-beak shaped land, salting its gas-pocked soil.
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Mrs. Merryman’s Collection
Anne Sophie Merryman
(Mack, 2012)
The blurb: The book, Mrs. Merryman’s Collection, presents the postcards which together form the story of two intertwined lives – one life lived travelling the world through the postcard images, the other a child and then adult whose life and relationship to her own history and her future were influenced by the collection. While Anne-Marie and Anne Sophie never met, both their lives were inspired by the postcard collection – a relationship that was born, and continues to flourish, in the realms of the imagination.
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The Present
Paul Graham
(Mack, 2012)
The blurb: The Present is Paul Graham’s contribution to this legacy. The images in this book come unbidden from the streets of New York, but are not quite what we might expect, for each moment is brought to us with its double – two images taken from the same location, separated only by the briefest fraction of time. We find ourselves in sibling worlds, where a businessman with an eye patch becomes, an instant later, a man with an exaggerated wink; a woman eating a banana walks towards us, and a small focus shift reveals the blind man right behind her.
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Also in the box are other items that add to the idea and object of the photobook.
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A small charge of $5 is being made to cover postage to the Boxes’ next destination in Auckland New Zealand.
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THE EXPO 88 PHOTO SHOW – 25 years on
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First & Last EXPO PHOTO SHOW Poster
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EXPO’88 – A conceptual photographer’s document
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At this time twenty-five years ago, January 1989 – the people of Brisbane were beginning to lament the passing of EXPO’88. While the six-month adventure opportunity to encounter the world and its cultures and cuisine was to form lasting memories for some, others may have recollections of the crush of interstate and overseas visitors, the nightly flamboyant fireworks displays and the inevitable queuing to visit everything from food stalls, to exhibitions and toilets. EXPO’88 is often seen as a watershed in the transformation of Brisbane as a sleepy backwater into a vibrant cosmopolitan city of the world and, most certainly part of the 21st Century.
I had a season pass for EXPO’88 and created a personal body of work as a response to my experience of the event.
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Here is the back-story behind my 1988 project … The First & Last EXPO PHOTO SHOW
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EXPO 88 Crowd Crush ………..PHOTO: Ethyl Stevens aka Doug Spowart
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In the EXPO’88 event I recognised an opportunity for the creation of a new body of work investigating emerging approaches to my work methodology. For varied reasons I had introduced to my practice the creation of alias identities to which my work was attributed. These identities were quite complete in that they had refined working styles, subject matter, presentation forms, a photographic portrait, signatures and artists statements. As a gallery director it was easy to slip the work of these ‘photographers’ into group shows for commentary and critical acclaim. These personae enable me to play a little game on a system that at times, from my perspective at times, was biased, exclusive, nepotistic and overly critical. It also enabled me to explore ideas and concepts relating to my photography and the presentation of photographs.
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When EXPO offered season passes I attended the passport portrait session with pair of fake glasses and a fictitious name, Eugene Xavier Pelham Owens, the initials and the signature spelled ‘EXPO’. The deception had begun. In time this project grew into an extensive body of work from 5 different personae all representing their manufactured personal responses to the EXPO experience. The exhibition was opened on April 1st 1989 (April Fools Day), it was reviewed positively in the Courier Mail and sales of work resulted from people who found the photographs reconnecting them with their experience of the event. The deception went undetected and after the exhibition the body of work passed into obscurity, as do so many exhibitions of photographs, and was slipped into archive storage boxes in my studio.
Whilst, at the time of the fieldwork on this project I called myself a ‘conceptual photographer’ as I felt that my work was driven by the overarching idea of personal experience documents rather than the photodocumentary reportage principles of truth and reality. I was aware of the term ‘conceptual artist’ and recognized that it had all kinds of baggage attached to it based on art theory and movements, however my work as a photographer at this time has simpatico with Sol Lewitt’s 1967 manifesto on conceptual art. He states:
In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. (Lewitt 1967)
Recently Melissa Miles has discussed the term ‘Conceptual Documentary’ in her 2010 paper The Drive to Archive: Conceptual Documentary Photobook Design. The discusses in reviewing the photobooks of Stephen Gill, Mathieu Pernot and Matthew Sleeth. She asserts that this mode of photography is based on a theory that photographers want to collect and respond to a kind of ‘archive impulse’, making and arranging image sequences of daily life into photobooks. What appeals to me is that, as a Conceptual Documentary photographer I, as Miles defines, ‘seek[s] out and frame[s] their subjects according to a pre-determined idea or scheme. Processes of repetition and categorization are central to Conceptual Documentary’ (Miles 2010:50). For me, what I was engaged in was to make a commentary from a personal viewpoint and to create a contemporary record for public presentation and, ultimately archiving. While Miles’ contemporary Conceptual Documentary practitioner including the likes of Martin Parr freely publish their photobooks in the 1980s trade published productions were beyond the reach of most photographers including myself.
What I find interesting now is that the 1980s was a particularly productive period for me as I created a trilogy of exhibitions: Tourists Facts, Acts, Rituals and Relics, Icons & Revered Australiana and The First & Last Photo Expo Show. These were essentially social documentary projects based on a personal directorial premise. I found that the limited opportunities for presentation of the framed exhibition format of these shows led me to initial experiments with boxed sets of images and ultimately to self-published photobooks, the first of which was completed in 1992.
These days I’m not so concerned about any tag as my work is often so interdiciplinarian it is hard to define. What for me is interesting is that at the time I made work that may now be able to be defined and categorized using contemporary terms and definitions. What is also important now is that the EXPO’88 photographs, some 5,000 of them, exist as an archive not necessarily as a document of the place but rather as a personal, conceptual documentary photographer’s response to the EXPO’88 experience.
Doug Spowart December 26, 2013
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Lewitt, S. (1967). Paragraphs on Conceptual Art. Artforum 5: 8.
Miles, M. (2010) “The Drive to Archive: Conceptual Documentary Photobook Design.” Photographies 3, 49-68.
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HERE IS A SELECTION OF WORKS FROM MY EXPO’88 PSEUDONYMS
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John (Jack) Dorf ………(United Kingdom)
John (Jack) Dorf ………(United Kingdom)
Eugene Owens …….(USA)
Eugene Owens …….(USA)
Malenky Davotchka ……. (Russia)
Malenky Davotchka …….(Russia)
Y Regami ……(Japan)
Y Regami ……. (Japan)
Hanna Rhetzik …….(Czechoslovakia)
Hanna Rhetzik ……(Czechoslovakia)
Ethyl Stevens …….(USA)
Ethyl Stevens …….(USA)
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A PDF PRESENTATION CONTAINING MORE IMAGES IS AVAILABLE HERE: EXPO-SPOWART-v3
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First & Last EXPO PHOTO SHOW Poster
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Images and text © Doug Spowart Design of the Poster: Trish Briscoe
From the Doug Spowart Personal Art Archive 1953-2014
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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2013-14 NEW YEARS EVE FIREWORKS: Frogs Hollow – Toowoomba
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NEW YEAR’s EVE – A time for freedom from order — a time for fun.
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So we left the big cameras at home and went out with the little Olympus Pens point-n-shoot. No tripod – no big plans – “Bulb” setting, watch, mingle, be a part of the ‘BANG’, ‘Crackle’, ‘POP’ and the gasps and murmur of the crowd.
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These are truly experiments in capturing the experience and essence of a fireworks display in regional Australia … Enjoy!
And all the very best to you for the New Year!
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Click on any image for it to enlarge …
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© 2014 Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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FROM SMALL THINGS … : Queensland Small Towns Documentary Project
Queensland Small Towns: Documentary Project – Invite
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Queensland Small Towns: Documentary Project
Brisbane Powerhouse, 12 November to 1 December, 2013
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Queensland’s regional areas are fast becoming the most common subject for the scrutiny of the photodocumentary image-makers. In August the Central Queensland Project exhibition was shown at the Powerhouse in Brisbane and now, only a few months later, another show entitled Queensland Small Towns: Documentary Project is hung in the same venue. This new contribution to the documentation of regional communities is a student/lecturer project initiated by the three big Institutions: University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology and the Queensland College of Art (QCA).
With the support of academic staff, students of these photography and photojournalism faculties descended on the Queensland towns of Moranbah and Dalby. The exhibition’s coordinator Earle Bridger from QCA, chose these two regional localities because of the impact of mining. To add contemporary photodocumentary rigor to the activity, professional photographers: Russel Shakespeare, Adam Ferguson and Shehab Uddin were collaborators and advisors to the fieldwork.
The project’s mission, as stated in exhibition press, was to capture: ‘The stories, characters and everyday lives of people in Queensland outback towns’1. They further claim that: ‘this unique photo-documentary project [will] reflect[s] the changing face of rural Queensland.’ 2
This project was instigated to provide an in-field experience for the students. They were charged with the challenge of avoiding the traditional news story and to: ‘capture a visually appealing and thought-provoking narrative to a high-professional standard.’ 3
The exhibition at the Brisbane Powerhouse was extensive–the photographic images and video interviews were shoehorned into every available space. This made viewing of the show a little like a ‘hide and seek’ exercise. Its curation within this space created a fragmented view confusing the holistic flow of the exhibition.
Queensland Small Towns: Documentary Project – Installation … Photo: Doug Spowart
Queensland Small Towns: Documentary Project – Video and Photo installation … Photo: Doug Spowart
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Under the tutelage of lecturers and the photodocumentary practitioners assigned the project, as well as study, research and personal preparation, one may think that these primary concerns are well covered. However there is one other critical factor–The preconditioning from existing media overexposure and hype. This rhetoric includes the following: That these small towns, besieged by the extraordinary pressures of the extractive mining industries, are places in a state of flux between the perceived benevolent farming practices of the past and the boisterous bully of mining. These once sleepy rural places are now zones of friction between itinerant workers, inadequate infrastructure, fractured families and ‘fracked’ communities. Any documentary commentator must not let this prejudice impede their impartial reportage. Furthermore one must consider methodological and ethical issues around the selection of subject/s, the gaining of access and trust and the authenticity of the resulting work.
All that aside, what of the exhibition Queensland Small Towns: Documentary Project? What I found was a proficient and diverse presentation of contemporary photodocumentary work. Mixed in amongst the contemporary trend of the bland document aesthetic were emotive and sensitive photographs of private lives in difficult times. Images were grouped as mini photo-essays enabling a concept or a subject to be pursued.
Importantly the opportunity provided to these students and the lecturers to get into the field is one of the best lessons they both can have. As mentor Russell Shakespeare comments: ‘I think these projects are so important on every level. To get students out working on self generated stories and also for the Town to have a group of photographers recording “History” as they see it, and then to be archived by the State Library, hopefully this project will continue on throughout other Qld Towns in years to come.’ 4
Unlike the financial reality that students may encounter in their post graduation world, a $50,000 Arts Queensland Creative Partnership Grant funded the Small Towns Documentary Project5. And fittingly, considering the generous budget for the project, the photographs and video works will be gifted to the people of Queensland by their inclusion in the permanent collection of the State Library of Queensland.
This work will add to a significant archive for the future, however I’m concerned about the ‘thought-provoking narrative’ and its importance now. The exhibition at the Brisbane Powerhouse only marginally serves the purpose and power of contemporary documentary work … to communicate. No mention is given to exhibitions in Dalby and Moranbah–the communities that gave the project subject matter to image and document. The project is also left wanting in the application of eJournalism platforms like YouTube, Facebook, blogs and websites. Googling the project one encounters variations of the same succinct media release without external links to any online archive that says what was done, who did it and most importantly, provide a space for the communities documented to share and extend their stories.
The domain of the photodocumentary practitioner is not just the creation of material for the archive–its perhaps more important role is now, being in and of the times, and the communities and people who shared stories and submitted their lives to the gaze of these lens men and women. These stories are required now to inform, to cajole, to stir commentary and demand corporate and political acknowledgement, response and action. That’s where documentary photography does its best work …
Dr Doug Spowart
December 27, 2013
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1 http://brisbanepowerhouse.org/events/2013/11/12/queensland-small-towns-photo-documentary-project/
2 Ibid
3 http://www.uq.edu.au/sjc/qld-towns-project
4 Online correspondence from Russell Shakespeare
5 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/earle-bridger/b/521/737
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What follows are images and videos from the exhibition.
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Please Note: The photographs in this exhibition were presented as multiple image groups – only single images represent the photographer’s body of work. I have included the photographer’s statement under most images to give an understanding of their project and the context for the work. Most images in this review are from camera exposures within the exhibition environment and may not represent the image/s accurately due to reflections and uneven lighting.
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“Al Phillips, Drilling Supervisor + Chris Mannion, Driller, Moranbah” … Photo: Adam Ferguson and Brodie Standen, 2013
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Potential buyers survey a pen of cattle at the Dalby sale yards. The weekly auctions are Australia’s larget one-day cattle sale, with over 6,000 head of cattle passing through each week.…Photo: Kimberley McCosker
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“Joyce Coss”
83 years old with “Waddles” her Sliky Cross.
63 years living in Warra.
Photo: Russell Shakespeare 2013
Beyond the sporting ovals, on the outskirts of Moranbah, Sean lives in a trailer. The trailer is powered by a petrol generator and drinking water tanks are filled at a family member’s house. He lives there by choice, a house has “too many walls”. Separated from his wife Sean shares custody of their 5 boys. Charlie, Darcy, Bailey, Harley, & Riley spend each weekend with their Dad and I was fortunate enough to spend a few days with them while they visited over school holidays. With Moranbah as a backdrop, a town where much of the population’s main objective is obtaining and retaining material wealth, getting rich and getting out, Sean’s lifestyle begs a closer look at what separates need and want. I would like to thank Charlie, Darcy, Bailey, Harley, Riley & Sean for their hospitality & allowing me to tag along with them. Photo: Cory Wright
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“Moranbah McDonald’s which lies on the outskirts of town” … Photo: Julia Whitwell
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The Wilkie Creek Rural Fire Brigade in conjunction with other local fire brigades, coordinate necessary hazard reduction fires, as well as keeping life threatening fires at bay during the high risk summer season. Pictured [in my project] are their lives on a daily basis, as well as their involvement in a hazard reduction fire completed near Lake Broadwater in October, 2013. Photo: Eva Turek-Jewkes
Four videos by students from the University of Queensland School of Journalism and Communication:
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“Grassdale Feedlots”
A curios 2 year old, 620kg Hereford steer in Grassdale Feedlots state of the art facility (to extreme left of series). Pens are cleared every 50 days as part of the facilities self-audited quality and health assurance measures. World class traceability systems allow staff to track, monitor and isolate specific data on each individual beast, including birth date, purchase date and origin, weight, breed, feeding ration and medical record. Established in 2008, Grassdale Feedlot is a 13,000 acre property 30kms south of Dalby centre. Currently with over 38,000 head of cattle and a capacity of up to 50,000 head, the feedlot boasts one of the largest and most technologically advanced feedlot facilities in Australia. The estimated $60 million facility employs over 50 staff and is a major driver in the economic stability of the Dalby, Millmerran and Chinchilla region and remains at the forefront of grain-fed beef production in Australia employing some ground breaking technologies in milling and feeding processes. … Photo installation: Victoria Nikolova
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“Grassdale Feedlots” … Photo installation (detail): Victoria Nikolova
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Garden Bed. Cunningham Street … Photo: Liss Fenwick
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“Some Trash, Others Treasure”
Pioneer Park Museum in Dalby seems a place suspended in time, somewhere around the beginning of the 20th century. Located on Black Street – once very quiet and peaceful but nowadays one of the main truck parking spots in town – the museum is a magical space with colonial houses and antique machinery, accompanied by rustling of leaves and bird’s trill. Elaine and Daniel Fox, the main founders, have lived on-site for almost 11 years, taking care of this magical place on a daily basis. They began 23 years ago with only seven antique tractors. Today, they can boast of one of the largest collections of operating antique agricultural machinery in Queensland – some of which date back to the early 19th century. Together with a few passionate volunteers they keep the place alive and once a year, during Field Weekend, the town of Dalby travels in time to discover again the old knowledge, tradition and way of living of their ancestors. The Museum is mostly financed by an annual fund from the local government, entry tickets, and the craft shop income and the Field Day. However, it is hard enough to keep it working, with a fast developing technology and little funding; they struggle to keep their museum operating in the modern, quickly changing mining town, that Dalby has become. … Photo: Kasia Strek
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“No Access”
This work is not against mining. For whether it be the computers we use to stay connected, the solar panels we purchase that make us feel socially responsible or the cameras I use to tell stories, mining is embedded into the fabric of the 21st century. The debate should not be whether or not to mine, but rather how is mining to be controlled. What became obvious in Moranbah was that combined the mining companies controlled the political and social agendas. Through ostensibly generous salaries, subsidized housing and rare community donations mining companies have become the pushers and the population the addicts. Mine workers are afraid to speak to strangers for fear they are the media. Criticism is only whispered when in the company of friends. The right to have an opinion that may differ from the company has been severely eroded. To express that opinion puts job and home at risk. No Access argues that Australia should retain exclusive rights to its resource management. It argues for controlled mining. But most of all it presents a snapshot of the liberties we have sold in order to satisfy those who seek to maximize profits and minimize social responsibility. Moranbah. David Lloyd. 2013.
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The photographers and video producers retain all copyright in their images and presentations. Text and installation photographs © 2013 Doug Spowart
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BACK STORY: The Icons & Revered Australiana Show
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ICONS Logo
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The Icons & Revered Australiana show: Twenty – Five Years On
The ICONS on ICONS exhibition at the Cobb+Co Museum in Toowoomba features 5 local photographers. For the show I have selected 26 gelatine silver photographs drawn from my archive. They were originally prepared for the Australian Bi-centennial celebrations in 1988 – 25 years have elapsed and yet the images are as fresh and evocative as ever. For me the work represents an important aspect of my photographic and photobook work – where the narrative of life and culture is expressed through a set of images and sometimes accompanied by a complimentary text.
So here is the back story of my Icons & Revered Australiana
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Doug Spowart
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I have had a lifetime interest in the Australian idiom, slang and its stories. This body of work represents the culmination of a personal investigation into what are seminal identifiers of our culture and the way the Australian condition has shaped our language. In my early teenage years I read most of John O’Grady’s books like They’re a weird mob and Gone Fishin. His dictionary of Australian-isms Aussie English was a particular favourite. At that time I would encounter people, mainly older people, who spoke using the language defined by Sidney J Baker’s or what Afferbeck Lauder called Strine, (a condensation of Australian with an emphasis on the latter part of the word = STRINE).
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Throughout my life I have travelled around Australia, firstly as a child with my family then later with friends and from the1980s onward as a tour leader on outback safaris. I always felt close to the land and the Australian condition and was fascinated by the stories and the vernacular language by which it was described. I met outback characters including songwriter/performer Ted Egan, before his Northern Territory Governor commission, who immortalised these Australian-isms and stories in song. I was also influenced by a library of photographers like Jeff Carter, George Farwell, Douglas Baglin and perhaps even Rennie Ellis who made photographs and told stories in their photobooks. Inspiration also came from Barry Humphreys, Walkabout magazine and the works of painters like Russell Drysdale, Hans Heysen and Sydney Nolan.
From my experiences I decided to make a selection of things Australian that I considered were so embedded in culture that they could be considered as icons and revered with a religious fervour. I resolved to call the exhibition Icons & Revered Australiana. To provide an extra personal challenge to the project I limited my selection to an A to Z list representing a range of ideas, subjects, myths and localities. I then embarked upon a 4 state and territory journey to make images. While most images were deliberate and targeted some photographs were made along the way as opportunistic discoveries. I do remember specifically driving into Sydney, putting a wire coat hanger under my arm and walking down to the Sydney Opera House to photograph the bridge.
The Icons show was presented at Imagery Gallery in March 1988 and I think, well received. However the Courier Mail critic, a friend of mine of the time, was not impressed – his headline read There’s better work to come! I did ponder the thought that there may have been a sub-plot to his review. The exhibition went on to show at another venue in Queensland and individual images, such as the BIG Coat Hanger received accolades, was published in many journals, and went on to be one of my signature images. After the show was over the exhibition was de-framed and the mounted images sequestered away in archival solander boxes.
But what of this current iteration of the Icons & Revered Australiana body of work? Twenty-five years may have elapsed and yet these pre-digital gelatine silver images are as fresh as ever – a testimony to the special nature of infrared and black+white analogue photography. In revisiting the original catalogue text, I’ve re-connected with the thread of humour, irony and pastiche that has always run through my work.
While those who knew these aspects of life, culture and language intimately, and practised it daily, may have long passed on, Icons & Revered Australiana may still resonate with contemporary audiences. I do not expect that everyone will begin to use terms like ‘Bonza’, ‘Sheila’ and ‘Wouldn’t be dead for quids’, although we do encounter this kind of vernacular language in contemporary song writing, (particularly in country and western music), prose and poetry. And for a while we enjoyed it in the wonderfully expressive Strine of Steve Irwin.
These Icons and Revered Australiana are just the tip of the great myriad of things Australian. Deep down, within us, is a kind of ‘knowing’ of our Australian-isms, and how they have defined us and continue to define us as a people and a country.
Doug Spowart
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SO HERE THEY ARE: My ‘A to Z’ Icons & Revered Australiana
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A = Ayers Rock – Revered as the largest monolith in the world, Ayers Rock is now known by its traditional Aboriginal name Uluru.
B = The Black Stump. It was once believed that the black stump was the limit of possible human habitation beyond which nothing existed but useless land and desert. Today, it’s revered by a roadside stop featuring a Black Stump storyboard and black painted stump icon, a car park, BBQ and toilet. And lots of people have come to live on ‘the other side’. Near Coolah, New South Wales.
C = The Big Coat Hanger – Slang for the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
D = Dunny – The Australian out-house or toilet is affectionately known by this name.
A coach camp dunny Birdsville, Queensland.
E = Eucalyptus – This is an iconic plant embedded in the Australia psyche; from the arts to the construction of our towns, and the source of therapeutic aromatic oil – a familiar memory in everyday households of Australia. On the Heysen Trail, Mount Lofty Ranges, S.A.
F = Fosters – An historically famous Australian beer. Barry Caves, The Northern Territory.
G = Gundagai – Five miles from Gundagai is the location described in the bush verse about a bullocky’s bad luck. While the popular version of this story makes a hero of the bullocky’s dog who ‘sat on’ his tucker box protecting it from harm. However anyone reading the original poem would come to the conclusion that the ultimate in bad luck had befallen the bullocky – that the dog had actually ‘shat in’ the tucker box. In this image of the tourist memorial near Gundagai a statue of the dog ‘sits’ on the tucker box while kids steal money from the wishing fountain in front.
H = Holden – The quintessential Australian motor vehicle. Fish Lane, South Brisbane, Queensland.
I = Iron (Corrugated) – The most common and versatile building material for outback structures. Olary, S. A.
J = Joe Blake – Equals ‘snake’ in Australian rhyming slang. Mannahill, South Australia.
K = Kangaroo – An endemic Australian species often so prolific in number that road signs are erected to warn motorists of their presence. The signs are also useful as a test of shooters skill if a shortage of the real thing exists. Judging by this example the Roos have a fair chance. West of Nyngan, New South Wales.
L = Luna Park – A Temple of fun, frivolity and scary rides for Sydney-siders and Melbournites. St Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria.
M = Meat Pie – The eating of a meat pie and tomato sauce is a celebrated Australian rite or sacrament, and if you come from Victoria the Four’n Twenty variety would have once been considered the best! Broadbeach, Queensland.
N = Ned Kelly – Located at Glenrowan this colonial sacred site is the place where the Australian folk hero Ned Kelly made his notorious last stand against the Victorian Police. Erected to enable ‘pilgrims’ to ‘revere’ the place, these modern day structures house a multitude of Ned Kelly tokens and souvenirs. Rather than recognise this as a solemn and tragic clash between authority and the underclass, these souvenirs often seem to parody the event. Here, the matches are a strange connection to the fact that the Victorian Police set fire to the Kelly gang’s refuge and burned it down to enable his capture. Glenrowan, Victoria.
O = Outback. An open gate, and two tyre tracks pointing toward infinity best expresses the great expanse of wide-open space that is the outback. Near Scopes Range Bore Western, New South Wales.
P = Pub. Revered as the typical lonely outback pub the Birdsville hotel is so inundated with visitors for the annual races that the traveller’s empty beer cans are removed each morning with a front-end loader and a tip truck. Birdsville, Western Queensland.
Q = Quid. The pre-decimalization equivalent of two dollars, often associated with value statements like ‘wouldn’t be dead for quids’ and, ‘not the full quid’. Toowong Cemetery, Brisbane, Queensland.
R = Red Heads & Red Backs. Both being red these two Australian items can spell danger. Queensland Museum, Brisbane.
S = Sheep. The Australia economy was once described as living off the sheep’s back. Immortalized here is a giant merino variety attracting pilgrims to its past glory. Goulburn, New South Wales.
T = Thong. Casual Australian footwear. Western Pains Zoo, Dubbo, New South Wales.
U = Ute. Invented by Australians both in concept and name. Longreach, Queensland.
V = Vegemite. A black vegetable extract used as a spread on toast or Salada biscuits.
W = Waltzing Matilda. Shown here is a shrine erected by the McKinlay Shire Council to mark the location where Banjo Paterson wrote the Australian anthem about a swagman’s demise on stuffing a jumbuck (sheep) in his tuckerbag. Combo Waterhole near Kynuna, Queensland.
X = Xanthorrhoea. The botanical name for the Australian native plant commonly referred to as the grass tree. Near Canungra, Queensland.
Y =Yabbie. Any form of the Australian freshwater crayfish of the genus Cherax. Yabbying or catching yabbies is a favourite pastime of Australian kids. Near Nerang, Queensland.
Z = Zack. The colloquial term for a pre-decimal coin with a value of 5 cents, usually associated with statements of worthless value, hence ‘not worth a zack’ – pertaining here to barren outback country. Near Yunta, South Australia.
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This unique state complete exhibition set is available for purchase – Contact me for details
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Cobb+Co Museum – Icons on Icons events
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Images and text © Doug Spowart
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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COOPER+SPOWART to talk @ Cobb+Co Museum Dec 13
The Roundabout Clocktower from Weiley’s Hotel balcony
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CLICK HERE TO BOOK ON THE COBB+CO WEBSITE
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In the Dark Room with… Cooper+Spowart
In this talk we will discuss a number of topics and including:
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A commentary on the works in the ICONS on ICONS exhibition
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Our Nocturne residency projects around Australia
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How to make amazing Nocturne Photographs
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Our use of Social Media to connect art with the community.
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Attendees may wish to conclude their night activities @ Cobb+Co with a visit to the nearby Christmas Wonderland Spectacular in Queens Park
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St James’ Catholic Church
Outside the Grafton Hotel
The Subway – The Nocturne Muswellbrook Project
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VIEW A VIDEO OF THE ICONS SHOW FEATURING THE PHOTOGRAPHERS
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TO BOOK THE EVENT
http://www.shop.qm.qld.gov.au/cobbandco/in-the-dark-room-with-doug-and-victoria.html
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Cobb+Co Museum – Icons on Icons
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CENTRAL QLD PROJECT: REVIEW published in Queensland Review
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The latest issue of the journal Queensland Review features a review by us of the exhibition The Central Queensland Project that was shown at the Powerhouse Brisbane from 22 July to 18 August, 2013.
As the journal has publishing rights over their commissioned review we are unable to publish the text here. The review can be accessed from Cambridge Journals with the following links–a charge applies unless you are able to gain access through an academic institution or library.
Queensland Review, ,Volume20, Issue02, December 2013 pp 238-240
http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1321816613000329
As an introduction to the piece we provide the following:
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Queensland, its society and natural resources, has been the source of investigation by photographers for over 150 years. In the 1860s surveyor and photographer Richard Daintree created a quantitative analysis of the region’s potential for development. Associated with this record was a significant visual document in the form of photographs. In the lead up to Australia’s Bicentennial of white settlement the Queensland Art Gallery commissioned 6 photographers under the title Journeys North, to travel the state and: ‘produce a portfolio of photographs on the theme of community life in Queensland’ (Williamson 1988: p5). Now, nearly 25 years after this latest project, two photographers, Kelly Hussey-Smith and Alan Hill, have travelled north with cameras to document the current life and situations of people far away from the urbanized southeast corner.
The products of this latest documentary coverage were presented as the exhibition The Central Queensland Project (CQP) at the Powerhouse in Brisbane from July 22 to August 18, 2013. In exhibition material the photographers claim that:
Given the complexity of the modern economy, and the insularity of city life, many of us are blind to what lies beyond the city limits. Through this project we seek to gain insight into the lives, values and experiences of Central Queenslanders (Hill and Hussey-Smith 2013).
.References:
Hill, A. and K. Hussey-Smith. (2013). “About: Central Queensland Project ” Retrieved 25 July 2013, from http://centralqldproject.com/about/.
Williamson, C. (1988). Journeys North – Photographic Practice in Queensland in the 1980s: one aspect. Q. A. Gallery. Brisbane, Queensland, Queensland Art Gallery.
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A selection of installation photographs as well as images and captions commented on in the review are published here courtesy of the photographers Kelly Hussey-Smith and Alan Hill:
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Installation triptich ….Photos: Doug Spowart
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An exhibition visitor is photographed before the artwork Postcards From The Shires …Installation photo: Doug Spowart
Postcards from the Shires
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The New Village ..Installation photo: Doug Spowart
The New Village
With 3048 beds, The MAC Coppabella is one of the largest workers villages in Australia and larger than many towns in the region. Up to 1000 people will check in or out on any given day.
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5am
Three Moon Motel, Monto. FIFO and DIDO have entered the Australian vocabulary, along with debates about their social impacts. As a result, accommodation is often difficult to find, and motels have become temporary homes for transient workers.
Caterpillar Cowboy
Greg Barr introduced us to the phenomena of the Caterpillar Cowboy, which he describes himself as, being a ‘Cat’ machinery operator in the mines who is really a cowboy at heart. He and his partner Debbie run a modest property where they spend half the week on the land with their crops, cattle, and horses, and the other half of the week in the mines to support their rural lifestyle.
Karlaa
FIFO work does not just apply to mining. Karlaa works legally as a FIFO sex worker in the Central Queensland region. In 2010 Karlaa was asked not to return to a motel she had been working from discretely for two years after the proprietors realised she was a sex worker. She took the motel to court claiming discrimination on the basis of her profession. She initially lost this case, as it was found the motel did not discriminate against her because she was a sex worker, but because she was running her business from their premises. Many feared the decision would send the industry underground, resulting in unsafe working conditions and less transparency. Karlaa appealed the decision and in 2012 it was ruled that discrimination had taken place and the decision revoked. However, in November that year the Queensland Government made changes to the anti-discrimination act making it legal for moteliers and hoteliers to refuse sex workers accommodation.
Karlaa understands her profession may not appeal to everyone, but believes she has as much right as other businesses to take advantage of opportunities in the region.
From the ‘Transmission’ series
A section of the 540-kilometre long coal seam gas pipeline currently under construction crosses a property near Thangool. The pipeline stretches from southern Queensland to a liquefaction plant on Curtis Island near Gladstone.
From the ‘Extraction’ series
View towards Dawson Mine Complex, Moura.
From the ‘Transmission’ series
Coal and electricity are inextricably linked. In the first half of the 20th century, Brisbane’s electricity came from power stations in the city that were fuelled by coal from Ipswich. Now Queensland is part of a complex energy network not only spanning the state and the nation, but as the world’s largest coal exporter, the globe. Powerlines outside Middlemount.
From the ‘Extraction’ series
Export ready semi-hard coking coal in a Bowen Basin coal mine.
From the ‘Extraction’ series
Coal mining in the Central Queensland region is a 24-hour operation. The night shift begins in a Bowen Basin coal mine near Mooranbah.
From the ‘Extraction’ series
Coal mining in the Central Queensland region is a 24-hour operation. Night shift in a Bowen Basin coal mine near Mooranbah.
From the ‘Transmission’ series
Tannum Sands, south of Gladstone. In addition to being a major coal port, Gladstone is the destination for several major coal seam gas pipelines snaking their way through the Central Queensland landscape. The pipelines will deliver gas to three major liquefaction and export facilities currently under construction on Curtis Island.
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Photos © 2013 The Central Queensland Project Kelly Hussey-Smith and Alan Hill and installation photos Doug Spowart.
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PERV: Jess Martin does an iPhone Cloud @ MARS Gallery
The Mars Gallery with the Perv exhibition photo ‘cloud’
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In 1936, the one-time Bauhaus teacher Làzlò Moholy-Nagy, described his idea of the ‘photographic series’, and he spoke of it as being ‘the logical culmination of photography’. In his discussion he states that the ‘picture loses its identity as such and becomes a detail of assembly, an essential structural element of the whole which is the thing itself.’
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An exhibition, entitled Perv, by Toowoomba artist Jess Martin on show at MARS Gallery would no doubt excite Mohly-Nagy in that she has taken the idea of a photo sequence and turned it into a sculptural form to express her view of contemporary life and photography. Martin has for two years been collecting iPhone images of her life. Last year she exhibited at Futures Gallery in Toowoomba a mosaic of 2,000 of these images in three 1 square metre murals. The theme was her life as a photographer, curious about the visual nature of the world and the access to quick imaging via the mobile phone.
Perv takes the idea further by expanding it to encompass iPhone image submissions sent to her via Facebook social media from friends and their friends …. Deciding to take the concept off the gallery wall where it’s just glanced at by the viewer Martin has constructed a 3-Dimensional space to mirror the image overload of modern life. What’s more, is that the images are suspended the full length and breadth of the Mars space – some 5×10 metres creating a cloud of photo images.
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The view from above
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Who knows how many thousand images are here… who cares? Who measures our daily dose of images anyway? So while this exhibition is confrontational it is also indicative of the prevalence, pervasiveness and proliferation of vernacular photography today. Viewers encountering this sky-load of images will need to search far if they are looking for classic pictorial beauty, or even well crafted documentary images. These pics are rapid snaps — faces, places, events, Facebook trivia, the weird and wonderful, rude and humorous. In a few seconds you can find photos of cats and dogs doing amazing things, food being devoured, over-flashed close-up faces and obviously candid and personal moments between lovers, family and friends.
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Looking at Perv’s pics
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Billions of photographs are made and Perv‘s several thousand may be the equivalent of a grain of sand in all the beaches of the world however within this space we have an opportunity to connect with the contemporary reality of the photo today and the use of this once specialist human activity.
In coming back to Moholy-Nagy again there is something else to ponder that this exhibition celebrates and that is, in Nagy’s words; ‘its separate but inseparable parts a photographic series inspired by a definite purpose can become at once the most potent weapon and the tenderest lyric.’
The exhibition remains on show at Mars Gallery until December 6, 2013.
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Words and photos: Doug Spowart
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Moholy-Nagy, L. (1936). From Pigment to Light. Telehor. 1: 32-36.
Vicky, Jess and Doug
Jess is a past student from Doug’s SQIT Art Photography class. We have mentored her during this project however Jess’ creativity, innovation and hard work has transformed this exhibition into a significant outcome – Congratulations Jess!
It should also be acknowledged that this exhibition has been supported by the Queensland Government through an RADF Arts Queensland Grant.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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QCP FUNDING CUT: Statements 1&2 from the QCP Board
FOLLOWING ON FROM PREVIOUS POST: LETTER TO THE MINISTER SUPPORTING THE QCP.
NOW THE QCP HAS HAD ITS QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT FUNDING CUT
STATEMENT #1 Posted by QCP today (November 11, 2013) on their Lucida Site:
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UPDATE
THE QCP HAS BEEN ABLE TO NEGOTIATE SUPPORT TO CONTINUE ALL PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS INCLUDING THE QLD FESTIVAL OF PHOTOGRAPY, LA ART FAIR & CONFERENCE UNTIL THE END OF APRIL 2014
STATEMENT #2 Posted by QCP December 11, 2013 on their Lucida Site:
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OTHER RELATED COMMENTARIES:
Overland Website – Article by Alison Croggon:
http://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-212/feature-alison-croggon/
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Tamara Winikoff on current cuts to the Arts in Queensland:
http://www.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/all-arts/savage-queensland-arts-cuts-197252
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Article by David Broker, director of CCAS, reflecting on funding cuts by the Queensland Government to QCP:
http://canberracontemporaryartspace.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/qcp-hard-times/
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ImageNews comments:
http://imagenews.com.au/article/savage-implementation-reform
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SELFIES: A history according to Doug & Others
Darren & Doug ‘Selfie’ @ Imagery Gallery c1987
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This recent Facebook post of a photo I made with Darren Jew in 1987 resulted in discussion around the idea of the ‘Selfie’ and my early connection with the technique. Around 12 years ago I discussed my inspiration and work with self-imaging in a university thesis – For your interest I publish the text here and add some images that date from my use of ‘Selfies’ in the 1980s.
For me the term ‘Selfie’ is a self image made by holding the camera at an arms length and angled back towards the photographer.
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Doin’ a selfie @ Birdsville 1983
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Self imagineering and portraits (now called Selfies)
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For some time my photography has included the self-portrait. The inspiration came from a friend (John Elliott) in the early 1980s who held up the camera before himself and friends and then fired the shutter. He attributed his use of the technique to Jean Pigozzi a Hollywood paparazzi photographer who employed this method to make pictures which showed himself posing with the rich and famous subjects he photographed. In the book Pigozzi’s Journal of the Seventies Jann Wenner, then the Editor of Rolling Stone magazine, was to write in his introduction a description Pigozzi’s self-portraits as being: the ultimate fantasy of the fan in everyone: A picture of yourself with your favourite star. Conquests! Self-immortalisation!
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Rod Stewart with Jean Pigozzi
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My use of the technique was basically to make images documenting myself at tourist locations as I travelled usually as a photo tour leader. Perhaps I was a ‘fan’ of the location, the location was one of my ‘conquests’, or maybe I sought ‘self-immortalisation’ through the photo – whatever. For me it just seemed the logical way of resolving problems relating to the imaging of personal experiences.
Using a 35mm Leica rangefinder camera with 35mm, and later with a 21mm lens, enabled wide angled views and sufficient depth of field to achieve the view I wanted. These self-portrait images often exhibit a random approach to composition as precise viewfinder alignment was not possible. I took care not to ‘dress up’ for the photograph so my appearance is what it was – no brushing of the hair, no straightening of the collar. They are, as intended, frank and factual.
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Waving away flies, Barry Caves NT, 1982
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In time these images formed a collection of “This is me at. . .“ pictures. They were a kind of “Foo was here” with me being the Foo graffiti figure. On occasions the only reason I would stop and photograph at a particular location was to capture another self-portrait for the collection. Sontag in her book On Photography alludes to this modus operandi in her comment that: Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs. Travel and self-imagineering was indeed to put me in situations where I could produce photographs that told of my experience – often in a humorous way.
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Riding a dragon and doin’ a selfie, China 1989
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With Vicky & helicopter pilot, Heartbreak Hotel NT c1992
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There were other aspects pertaining to self-imagineering work which encouraged my practice. I found that thrusting the camera before myself and in front of tourists assembled at the place of visitation was a kind of art performance. It was a spontaneous act; a celebration of experience that culminated in the ritual of photo taking. Self-imaging was crammed with fun and triviality. And having fun, and being seen to have fun and capturing that fun were certainly part of the agenda that drove my interest in this activity. The technique often caught on and doin’ a self-portrait became part of my fellow tourist’s recording rituals as well.
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Tony, Rob and Mark doin’ Selfies @ the Qld NT Border 1983
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Abridged from a Graduate Diploma thesis entitled My Shadow and I by Doug Spowart 2002. The thesis contains a discussion on the artist as tourist and the self-image as a document of personal experience.
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SOME MORE IMAGES:
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Selfie shadows with camera and ring-pulls, Alice Springs 1982
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‘Che’ (Doug) Selfie with Tony & Mark @ Three Ways NT, 1983
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On a coach in Central Australia 1982
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NEW UPDATES ON ‘SELFIES’
Texas town errects ‘selfies’ statue…
TEXTS ON PIGOZZI
http://www.helmutnewton.com/previous_exhibitions/pigozzi_and_the_paparazzi/index.html
A. D. COLEMAN’S COMMENT
A RECENT ADDITION TO THE DISCUSION ON ‘SELFIES’ (Although I’d say it was a self portrait)
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-first-selfie-in-history-1839.html
AND ‘THE OXFORD DICTIONARY ‘WORD OF THE YEAR’
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/11/an-infographic-of-selfie
AND A SPANISH INFOGRAPHIC
ANOTHER INFO GRAPHIC (English)
http://www.bestcomputerscienceschools.net/selfies/
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Images and text © Doug Spowart
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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