FORM & Midland Atelier respects the privacy of its newsletter subscribers and has in place a Privacy Policy to ensure compliance with all relevant government privacy laws including the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) as amended and the National Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
FORM & Midland Atelier only collect personal information about that is necessary to provide subscribers with services and to carry out its business functions and activities.
Use of personal information:
FORM & Midland Atelier do not sell or rent out any of the personal information it holds and protects the security of that information.
FORM & Midland Atelier use personal information about subscribers to provide services and to carry out its business functions or activities. FORM & Midland Atelier may also use the personal information to notify you about special offers, coming events and other benefits being offered to subscribers.
FORM & Midland Atelier may disclose personal information to our related bodies corporate and to third parties who perform services for FORM, including credit checking, mailing, marketing, and delivering services. Such persons are bound by confidentiality arrangements or obligations with FORM & Midland Atelier which cover the personal information.
FORM & Midland Atelier may be required or allowed by law to disclose personal information to the police, government, industrial or regulatory bodies or third parties.
Access to personal information:
An individual can seek access to his/her personal information collected by FORM & Midland Atelier by writing to FORM. FORM may refuse access to personal information where permitted by the National Privacy Principles. FORM may impose an administrative fee for providing copies of personal information held.
Correcting personal information:
If you believe that the personal information about you held by FORM & Midland Atelier is not accurate, complete and up-to-date, you can write to FORM and ask that it be corrected.
All complaints about the privacy of an individual’s personal information collected by FORM & Midland Atelier must be in writing and signed.
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Jon Goulder is one of Australia’s leading furniture designers and a mentor and beneficiary of FORM’s Designing Futures cluster development program. Jon has forged a career that encapsulates diverse approaches, techniques and media to become an internationally recognised designer with an astute knowledge of making - honed through a family history of craftsmanship and specialised trades spanning four generations.
Jon was the inaugural winner of Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Award, winner of the Hobart Art Prize and Peoples’ Choice Award and had work acquired by most state gallery collections and recently had two pieces collected by the National Gallery of Australia. His work has been showcased widely across the world including the launch of his Amore Mio chairs at the London Design Festival.
Jon's Leda Seat and Stak stool are in production and are distributed internationally, he also has a collection of limited edition furniture pieces produced and distributed from the Midland Atelier. Jon has several international clients who work with him in different capacities including exhibitions, private commissions, one-off installation design, and design for royalty / license based agreements with manufacturers. Jon Is currently as the Head of Workshop at the Midland Atelier and is working on his second solo exhibition and product range launch set for release in 2013.
Jon Goulder’s first solo exhibition, 11.12, Furniture by Jon Goulder, opened at FORM gallery on the 4th February, 2010. For details click here.
FORM is working in partnership with the Midland Redevelopment Authority to develop a Regional Creative Development Studio and Foundry as part of Midland Atelier, Western Australia’s first design and creative industries centre in the historic Railway Workshops in Midland.
The original Elements Store of the Midland Railway Workshops will be renovated to become Midland Atelier’s Regional Creative Development Studio. Encompassing workshop spaces for mixed-media creative practice including visual art, ceramics and design, the studio will offer high-quality professional development for first time, mid-career and established regional artists (particularly Indigenous artists) in regional and metropolitan areas.
A small Foundry will also be established to facilitate larger scale public art and sculptural work fabrication and will be supported by a skilled operational team specialised in arts and installation customisation to enable the fabrication of works including public art.
Representing Stage 3 of the Midland Atelier, the Regional Creative Development Studio and Foundry will complement Studios developed or in progress: the Pattern Shop (furniture and object design), Nurses post refit (States 1 and 2); and The Foundry Digital Media Hub (Stage 4).
Stage 3 will also include the fit-out of an education space and residential unit in the historical Water Tower building which will enable visiting regional artists and creatives-in-residence to train or receive training conveniently and co-located on site and enable the facilitation of creative exchanges and collaboration between Perth and regional artists.
This Elements Store represents an exciting progression of FORM’s Aboriginal Creative development work.
FORM has developed, and advocates for Aboriginal design and creative development models which engage participating artists fully and equitably at every stage and process: from initial design and conceptual work through the stages of exploration, refinement and model-making, to fabrication and the final product.
FORM has been working in the area of Aboriginal Creative development, benchmarking and showcasing since 2002. Significant projects and program models include Ngurra Kuju Walyja - The Canning Stock Route Project and Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route exhibition, the Strong from the Inside Out prison arts development program, Let’s Get Started! – an arts development program for new and emerging artists, and ENHANCE (working title), Western Australia’s first targeted design development program for Aboriginal visual artists.
FORM’s approach is recognised at a national level: in 2011 the Arts Law Centre of Australia nominated FORM’s Canning Stock Route Project as a best practice case study, while the Aboriginal Design Development model has attracted the attention of the Federal Office of the Arts.
From 2012 FORM will extend the reach of its Aboriginal Creative Development program by adapting it to the needs and interests of Noongar Aboriginal artists through the Elements Store studio at Midland Atelier.
These developments are currently the subject of fund raising before it can move forward so to progress this project, we need your support - so please register your support or interest in being part of this exciting transformational project.
Dr Paul McGillick is Editorial Director of Indesign Publishing, the author of numerous books and essays on architecture and design, and a communications consultant to architecture and design practices. Dr Paul McGillick has published extensively on architecture and design and is currently editor of Indesign and Habitus magazines.
Malcolm Harris is the Technical Manager at Midland Atelier’s Pattern Shop and an award-winning designer/maker specialising in custom hand crafted furniture. Malcolm began in the traditional woodworking trade, and for over past twenty years has refined his craft, creating distinguished works with timeless appeal. Malcolm’s specialisation in bespoke commissions of fine furniture for the domestic and corporate sectors has seen the popularity of his work swell; more recently his practice has evolved to encompass directional sculptural and public art pieces.
In February 2008, Malcolm collaborated with fellow Midland Atelier designer Jon Goulder on the Wesfarmers Commission - a groundbreaking partnership between FORM, Woods Bagot and Wesfarmers which resulted in the production two furniture pieces designed for Wesfarmers award-winning new reception space. The furniture, comprised of a large free-form carve, used muted tones and an organic form to reflect the company’s roots as an agricultural cooperative. The furniture also became the first design work commissioned specifically for the Wesfarmers Collection of Australian Art, one of Australia’s most prominent and comprehensive corporate art collections.
FORM welcomes Malaysian born Curtin graduate Alister Yiap to Midland Atelier as one of the newest Pattern Shop residents.
Pairing directional, beautifully constructed fashion with contemporary and refined jewellery design, Alister brings a wealth of creative energy and skill to the Atelier.
Though a recent graduate (2007) Alister has already achieved much, exhibiting widely and winning accolades such as inclusion in coveted Springboard entrepreneurship program for designers; selection as one of only five emerging designers in the highly competitive StyleAID Renaissance fashion event; and inclusion in the Perth Fashion Festival’s 10 year anniversary Designer Collection showcase in 2008.
2009 saw Alister return to the StyleAID runway as an established designer and also judged and mentored the Student Runway participants; Alister also took up a position as casual lecturer in Central Institute of Technology. During Perth Fashion Festiaval 2009, Yiap was industry nominated as a finalist for the Mercedes- Benz Western Australian Fashion Awards in the Fine Details category. In late September, Alister was invited by the Kimberly Theater company to judge Worn Art, an annual community event held in Boome, Western Australia.
On a national scale Alister participated in L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s RE-BAG project in conjunction with the Australian Poetry Centre and opened Kooey Swimwear’s Rosemount Australian Fashion Week solo show with his runway couture. Along with working on his installation for Art in Bloom 2010 exhibiting at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in August 2010, Yiap will be exhibiting in ‘Beyond Garment’ at the Fremantle Maritime Museum during this year’s Perth Fashion Festival.
Alister is currently working on his 2010/11 fashion and accessories collection, GEO, which will be launched nationally at Life InStyle Melbourne 2010.
Christian Fletcher is one of Australia’s premier landscape photographers with a career spanning two decades.
His love of photography, the Australian landscape and its inspirational visuals, has given rise to an impressive collection of images which are showcased in his Dunsborough, Margaret River and Mandurah galleries, in addition to several award-winning publications.
Throughout his career Christian’s technique has evolved with every advance in technology and he has come a long way since his humble beginnings in a makeshift dark room, mixing chemicals and printing and framing his own prints.
His passion for photography is kept alive by capturing the perfect image and striving for that is the challenge that keeps him moving forward.
Christian is the Australian Landscape Photographer of the year 2011, Australian Fusion Photographer of the year 2011 and Western Australian Landscape Photographer of the year. His natural and urban/industrial landscapes of Western Australia also won Gold and three Silver awards at the 2009 Australian Professional Photography Awards.
Images: Christian Fletcher, Midland Rail Yards (2011), Phase One 645DF Camera, Phase one P65+ Digital Back
Midland's Growth
Midland and the City of Swan is a significant growing residential and employment hub for WA and its strategic importance has been highlighted by the Western Australian Planning Commission’s Directions 2031 Strategy.
Its strategic location has traditionally positioned Midland as a provider of services to both Perth’s Eastern Region and Regional areas. With a number of significant investment projects either planned or underway and with the planned development and expansion of key industrial areas in the region, this role is set to continue and increase in importance. It is an area poised for growth, in particular investment projects across health, education, government, transport, defence and industrial development are setting Midland and the surrounding region apart as an exciting area of opportunity.
With major industry contributors to employment in the City of Swan currently including manufacturing, retail trade, construction and wholesale trade; the Strategies highlight the need for the region to develop an additional 42,000 jobs by 2031, of which 19,232 need to be knowledge intensive export orientated in nature. The development of development such as the Midland Health Campus and GP Super Clinic will play an important role in reaching this regional need.
Located on the north-eastern fringe of the Perth metropolitan area, the City of Swan and combines a diverse range of land uses and economic activities. Urban development in the City dates to the establishment of the Guildford township in the 1830s, but apart from expansion around the railway town of Midland (formerly Midland Junction) from the 1880s, significant residential development in the City of Swan has been a relatively recent phenomenon.
The City is fortunate in having a wide variety of function, character and role in its small areas, and this means that population projections differ significantly across the municipality. There are also significant differences in the supply of residential property within the City, and this will have a major influence in structuring different population and household types over the next 5-20 years.
There will be significant redevelopment activity in Midland (principally in the historic Railway Workshops precinct) which will result in an expected growth rate of 62.4% by 2031, or an average annual growth rate of 1.96%. In addition, the development of the Midland Health Campus will attract significant investment to Midland in particular and the City in general.
In 2009 FORM began the Midland Atelier Creative Residency program, which sees eminent creatives from a range of fields invited to take up long or short-term residencies at the Atelier. Residency packages are tailored to the needs of the visiting creatives and residencies can be for as little as week or as long as several months or more. Outcomes of previous residencies have included the creation of new bodies of artistic work, exhibition opportunities, commissions and network connections.
Midland Atelier is an inspiring precinct, set amongst 17 hectares of heritage industrial buildings. The Atelier is located at the gateway to Perth’s Swan Valley wine region, the arts, food and wine community of the Perth Hills and the pastoral Avon Valley. Midland is an historic area with strong multicultural roots and is connected to central Perth via easily-accessible public transport.
Creative Residents at Midland Atelier also have the opportunity to travel the beautiful and remote North Western region of Western Australia in creative camps and journeys facilitated by FORM.
Business
Midland is a strategically important location in Western Australia, situated at the nexus of major transport links and forming a gateway to regional Western Australia. Just 17km from the Perth CBD, Midland forms part of the City of Swan and Perth’s Eastern Region. The strategic importance of Midland has been highlighted by the Western Australian Planning Commission’s Directions 2031 which identified Midland as one of ten Strategic Metropolitan Centres in the Perth and Peel Region.
Midland is an area poised for growth.
Its location has traditionally positioned Midland as a provider of services to both Perth’s Eastern Region and Regional areas. This role as a hub and gateway is expanding, with a number of significant investments being made in the area, including a new premier health campus, Super GP Clinic, education facilities, improved transport corridors and connection with the airport, revitalised train station, WA Police transit and communications facility, and significant residential developments. These investments are transforming Midland and the surrounding region into an exciting area of opportunity.
Positioned directly on the train line, the Railway Workshops provide a significant historic site close to the town centre in an accessible, gateway location.
If you are considering making Midland the platform for your business or developments, please contact the Midland Redevelopment Authority.
Midland Redevelopment Authority
Railway Institute Building
Corner Helena Street and Yelverton Drive
MIDLAND WA 6056
PO Box 1335
MIDLAND WA 6936
Telephone: (08) 9374 5500
Fax: (08) 9250 2437
Email: mra@mra.wa.gov.au
Overview
The Pattern Shop, which opened in January 2009, is now the core of Midland Atelier’s wood, furniture and 3D object design practice and has undergone a significant extension giving it the space for 20 work benches. The design and production facility currently accommodates 10-15 state, national and international designers on a permanent and visiting basis.
In September 2012 FORM welcomed Belgian street artist ROA to Midland Atelier for the first time. Internationally celebrated, ROA’s work can be seen in urban environments around the world, bringing nature back to our built landscapes through his anatomically precise yet whimsical renderings of birds and animals. During his time in Western Australia ROA traveled to the Pilbara outback region of Western Australia collecting inspiration for his exhibition Paradox at FORM Gallery.
Works for Paradox were created during his residence at Midland Atelier and the exhibition ran at FORM Gallery from October 2011 to 14 January 2012. Although the exhibition has now closed you can find his artworks on some walls around Perth, and even one at the Midland Railway Workshops themselves.
Imagine the world you want to live in...
Now go out and create it.
FORM is working in partnership with the Midland Redevelopment Authority to develop a Digital Media Hub as part of Midland Atelier, WA’s first design and creative industries centre at the heart of the historic Midland Railway Workshops, based on the clear need for greater support of our creative communities and entrepreneurs.
The Foundry Digital Media Hub will aim to nurture innovation, learning, entrepreneurship and creative expression for digital media practitioners including animation, graphic design, web-development, photography, music, film, gaming and 3D development.
With the cross-disciplinary focus of the Atelier, the opportunities for exploring innovation across disciplines and industries are truly exciting, offering a resource for regional and metropolitan communities alike to connect with a hub of fellow creatives and collaborators. Through its extended reach of connectivity and services, the Hub will not only provide benefits in Midland and Perth, but also across regional Western Australia to enable engagement with the digital media industry.
The adaptation of over 2,000 sqm within the Foundry building will provide access to specialised equipment, co-working and office spaces, learning environments and other facilities as well as programming, specialised support services and events. This will sit alongside existing and planned design studios including furniture and objects, mixed media, Indigenous design, metals, and planned retail and hospitality (A further brief is below).
Your support is essential to making this happen.
Please indicate your support of The Foundry Digital Media Hub by clicking here, if you would like to see this project realised.
Your voice will make a difference as FORM works to raise the funding for this transformational initiative.
You can read the overview document here.
For additional information, please contact FORM:
T: (08) 9226 2799
E: mail@form.net.au
Alan Lindsay
Managing Director - Founding Partner
VUE Group
"As someone who has worked tirelessly to harness the opportunity of digital and new media for Western Australia through my work to establish Vue Group as a campus for digital content innovation and through the co-development of Australian Centre for Digital lnnovation in Bunbury, I see the enormous opportunity this sector offers WA and I am committed to pursuing that potential.
Western Australia's development and economy is so focused on the resources industry it is refreshing to see a vibrant, proactive, provocateur organisation like FORM taking up the baton for a digital content industrial, educational and afts hub. FORM has done its homework, and has management withe the foresight to make a true contribution to the growth of the state across creative industries disciplines."
To view this letter of support, click here.
The Hon Colin Barnett MLA
Premier of Western Australia
"The development of the Digital Media Hub will address many of the inherent challenges faced by a geographically-diverse State, like Western Australia. As a base for innovative and creative digital media practitioners who demonstrate excellence in their field of work, the digital media infrastructure will blend physical facilities with world-class services. It will also support the growth of a high-tech industry to create locally developed products, services and Intellectual Property."
View this letter of support here
Once upon a time when the pigs chewed lime is the first solo exhibition by Midland-based designer-maker, Alex Fossilo. The exhibition has been conceived to show in The Water Tower studio at FORM’s Midland Atelier, a unique creative hub located in the historic Midland Railway Workshops.
Alex is one of Western Australia’s most innovative young emerging designers, having been recognised through a national design award, international professional development and a Fellowship from the Western Australian Department for Culture and the Arts. Flying in the face of convention, Alex has developed his first solo exhibition as “a multidisciplinary foray into the exploration of process”, comprising sketches, experiments and works-in-progress, rather than finished designs. Of the project, Alex has said:
For this exhibition I have not set out to make any particular piece of furniture. Rather, I wanted to explore several detailed concepts through sketches, drawing and the process of making, and attempt to covey these ideas as a cohesive body of work. Some pieces originated, for example, by looking at less conventional methods for joining timber, or with the intent to push a material to its limits. Some concepts are presented at different stages of resolution, but they are all part of a connected thought process. I have attempted to document this process, which I see as being as important as a finished piece.
As such, the exhibition will allow members of the public unique insight into Alex’s design process, while showcasing his impressive technical skill and design sensibility.
The development of this project was supported by a Young People and the Arts Creative Development Fellowship from the Western Australian Department for Culture and the Arts.
Sam Harris (Australia/UK):
Postcards from Home and Celebrity Portraits
Born and raised in the suburbs of south London, Sam Harris is a self-taught photographer now based in Ballingup, Western Australia.
Always interested in photography, as a child Harris played with his mother’s old box brownie camera. He began experimenting in a home dark room as a teenager which lead to a career working in the London music industry of the early 90s, making album sleeve art and shooting editorial portraits of Britpop icons such as Jarvis Cocker and Blur for magazines inclduing Esquire and Dazed & Confused.
When Harris began the migration process to Australia, restrictions in terms of what he could shoot professionally meant that his home life was the only consistent opportunity to photograph. Postcards from Home emerged from this environment, documenting two daughters, Uma & Yali, as they grew up.
"It’s a very different way of working; there may be an urgent email or the washing up to stop you doing what you want to do. I really want to define a new language for myself with this work, to continue experimenting, to see how light can transform a situation; there is no telling when the magic can happen and transform the mundane into something more lyrical…"
Images © Sam Harris.
The Elsewhere exhibition program has been curated by FORM to highlight the work of leading international photographers. Headlining the showcase is internationally-renowned Magnum photographer Martin Parr, whose Black Country Stories series documenting England’s industrial Midlands will resonate within the Railway Workshops setting. Joining Parr are some of India’s most celebrated photographers: Sohrab Hura will present images of Indian religious rituals; award winning Ketaki Sheth will show her groundbreaking portraits of twins; and Bharat Sikka will exhibit his vision of the ‘new’ India, blending studio, street, landscape and portrait photography. Closer to home, Australian-based UK photographer Sam Harris will take us on a visual journey mirroring his unconventional life: abandoning a career photographing London’s hottest Brit-Pop acts of the 1990s to settle in rural Ballingup, Western Australia.
Sam Harris (Australia/United Kingdom)
Sohrab Hura (India)
Martin Parr (United Kingdom)
Ketaki Sheth (India)
Bharat Sikka (India)
DIVERGENCE: Photographs from Elsewhere
Exhibition Publication (6mb)
Official Opening: Wednesday 14th March, 6pm-8pm
Public Program: Saturday 17th March, 10am-5pm
Public Program (4mb)
Exhibition runs 15 March - 15 April 2012, Wed-Sat 10am-4pm
In partnership with FotoFreo, FORM presents Divergence: Photographs from Elsewhere, a monumental showcase of contemporary photography by over sixty artists based in fifteen countries, as part of the FotoFreo Open Exhibition Program. The project will transform the Midland Railway Workshops into a panorama of images that demonstrate photography’s unique ability to communicate across cultures, connect diverse people, create debate and stir emotion. A dynamic multimedia event will launch this month long photographic showcase on Wednesday 14 March.
Key Exhibitions/Programs include:
FOTOFREO: OPEN EXHIBITION PROGRAM
PILBARA PROJECT: THE PHOTOGRAPHERS CUT
MIDLAND ATELIER SITE ACTIVATION
For further information contact FORM: (08) 9226 2799 or mail@form.net.au
Images of Opening Night © Matt Biocich.
Atomic Phototgraphers Guild (international collective of 25 artists):
Behind the Atom Curtain: Life and Death in the Nuclear Age
Founded by photographer Robert Del Tredici in 1987, the Atomic Photographers Guild is an international collective of photographers dedicated to making visible all aspects of the nuclear world. This show highlights history’s gravest, and still ongoing, nuclear accident in Fukushima, with special acknowledgement of the work of Kenji Higuchi, the preeminent photographer of Japan’s nuclear workers. Behind the Atomic Curtain: Life and Death in the Nuclear Age features the work of twenty four photographers from eight countries, each focusing on different aspects of what could be our generation’s darkest and most enduring legacy.
The exhibition features works by:
Jessie Boylan (Australia)
Berlyn Brixner (USA, deceased)
Dan Budnik (USA)
James Crnkovich (USA)
Blake Fitzpatrick (Canada)
Nancy Floyd (USA)
Harris Fogel (USA)
Kenji Higuchi (Japan)
John Hooton (USA)
Carole Gallagher (USA)
Peter Goin (USA)
Igor Kostin (Russia)
Yuri Kuidin (Kazakhstan)
James Lerager (USA)
Andreas Lobe (Germany)
Yoshito Matsushige (Japan, deceased)
David McMillan (Canada)
Patrick Nagatani (USA)
Barbara Norfleet (USA)
Elin O’Hara Slavik (USA)
Paul Shambroom (USA)
Robert Del Tredici (Canada)
Vaclav Vasku (Czech Republic)
Gunter Zint (Germany)
Image: © Jessie Boylan, Berlyn Brixner, Carole Gallagher, Kenji Higuchi, David McMillan and Barbara Norfleet.
Alex Fossilo (Australia):
Once upon a time when the pigs chewed lime
Once upon a time when the pigs chewed lime is the first solo exhibition from Midland-based designer-maker, Alex Fossilo, working under the moniker Fosax.
A multidisciplinary foray into the exploration of process, the exhibition plays on the fine boundary between function and disfunction with emphasis on methodology and working practice. The work is laid bare and made available for dissection, focusing on means and creative exercise over resolved form.
The project’s origins nest in an intention to ignite a chain of discourse borne from graphical inspirations with no premise that anything had to develop into functional design. Rather, Fosax explores sparks of inspiration and intrigue. Core to the physical manifestations that have evolved from this process is the utilisation of natural strength and movement inherent in timber, embracing sometimes dysfunctional form as a way of progressing to the functional.
Fosax began working for himself in early 2010 and currently works out of the Midland Atelier workshop. For Fosax the exhibition marks a beginning — a chance to explore fresh ideas and establish both a visual language and a defining work process.
“For this exhibition I have not set out to develop and make any particular piece of furniture. Rather I wanted to explore several detailed concepts through sketches, drawing and the process of making, and attempt to covey these ideas as a cohesive body of work. Some pieces originated, for example, by looking at less conventional methods for joining timber, or with the intent to push a material to its limits. I have attempted to document the process, which I see as being as important as a finished piece. Some concepts are presented at different stages of resolution, but they are all part of a connected thought process. Being my first exhibition, the intention is for the ideas generated to feed into future work and express my style of work.”
After graduating from Landscape Architecture with Honours in 2007, Alex Fossilo began working as a furniture maker in Western Australia’s south west, where he gained extensive technical skill and experience in high-end furniture production. Since then, he has been devoted to establishing himself as a designer-craftsman of truly unique works. In 2008 Alex won the Australian Furniture Industry Student award for his Mantis Chair. This afforded him the opportunity to spend three months travelling through Europe focusing on furniture, art and design. Alex visited various furniture manufacturers and also attended several short courses, one of which was a Vitra Design Museum workshop in France, with Brazilian Design icons Fernando and Humberto Campana. In early 2010 Alex was offered the opportunity to join the Midland Atelier collective and moved to Perth to further establish his design practice. During this time he has worked on the Atelier’s largest commission to date, the production of a range of high-end reception furniture for Wesfarmers new Level 12 fitout, in addition to solo works and a host of private commissions. He received a Young People and the Arts Creative Development Fellowship for the development of this exhibition.
Images © Alex Fossilo
Alex Fossilo (Australia):
Once upon a time when the pigs chewed lime
Once upon a time when the pigs chewed lime is the first solo exhibition from Midland-based designer-maker, Alex Fossilo, working under the moniker Fosax.
A multidisciplinary foray into the exploration of process, the exhibition plays on the fine boundary between function and disfunction with emphasis on methodology and working practice. The work is laid bare and made available for dissection, focusing on means and creative exercise over resolved form.
The project’s origins nest in an intention to ignite a chain of discourse borne from graphical inspirations with no premise that anything had to develop into functional design. Rather, Fosax explores sparks of inspiration and intrigue. Core to the physical manifestations that have evolved from this process is the utilisation of natural strength and movement inherent in timber, embracing sometimes dysfunctional form as a way of progressing to the functional.
Fosax began working for himself in early 2010 and currently works out of the Midland Atelier workshop. For Fosax the exhibition marks a beginning — a chance to explore fresh ideas and establish both a visual language and a defining work process.
“For this exhibition I have not set out to develop and make any particular piece of furniture. Rather I wanted to explore several detailed concepts through sketches, drawing and the process of making, and attempt to covey these ideas as a cohesive body of work. Some pieces originated, for example, by looking at less conventional methods for joining timber, or with the intent to push a material to its limits. I have attempted to document the process, which I see as being as important as a finished piece. Some concepts are presented at different stages of resolution, but they are all part of a connected thought process. Being my first exhibition, the intention is for the ideas generated to feed into future work and express my style of work.”
After graduating from Landscape Architecture with Honours in 2007, Alex Fossilo began working as a furniture maker in Western Australia’s south west, where he gained extensive technical skill and experience in high-end furniture production. Since then, he has been devoted to establishing himself as a designer-craftsman of truly unique works. In 2008 Alex won the Australian Furniture Industry Student award for his Mantis Chair. This afforded him the opportunity to spend three months travelling through Europe focusing on furniture, art and design. Alex visited various furniture manufacturers and also attended several short courses, one of which was a Vitra Design Museum workshop in France, with Brazilian Design icons Fernando and Humberto Campana. In early 2010 Alex was offered the opportunity to join the Midland Atelier collective and moved to Perth to further establish his design practice. During this time he has worked on the Atelier’s largest commission to date, the production of a range of high-end reception furniture for Wesfarmers new Level 12 fitout, in addition to solo works and a host of private commissions. He received a Young People and the Arts Creative Development Fellowship for the development of this exhibition.
Images © Alex Fossilo
Michelle Taylor (Australia)
Awkward Beauty: Photographer's Cut
Western Australian photographer Michelle Taylor is a creative resident at the Midland Atelier. Her recent body of work, Awkward Beauty, was created on site at the Midland Railway Workshop in collaboration with Munich-based contemporary jeweller Helen Britton, and Perth garment designer Justine McKnight. The series spins a multi-layered, multi-material narrative around the Workshops site, exploring the complex notion of ‘beauty’ through a process of exchange, reaction, interpretation and collaboration, in which the artists created work in direct response to each other.
Taylor’s experience working as a photographer and journalist in the fashion meccas of Milan, Paris, New York and London is on display in these sumptuous images, yet she also moves beyond the tropes of traditional commercial photography by adopting an ‘aesthetic of displacement’.
“Through the use of natural light and the imperfection of film, the images are just as much about what’s not there as what is,” she states. “The union and uniformity is undone by the suggestion of something a little ‘off’ within the image. This is the real life of the poetically unbalanced, the awkwardly beautiful.”
Michelle Taylor will show a personal selection of images in Awkward Beauty: Photographer’s Cut as part of Divergence: Photographs from Elsewhere.
Location: The Water Tower and surrounding buildings, Midland Railway Workshops.
Images © Michelle Taylor
During the past five years Tim Whiteman has developed a distinctive and exciting design practice focusing on the production of timber products. Operating from the Midland Atelier, Tim is reconnecting with his family’s pioneering family history in the Midland Region. Many of his pieces “tell a story” referencing his life in Western Australia and featuring landscape influences.
His ‘Cache Series’ reinterprets the concept of the popular gift item, the timber box. Created from an exploration of the contrasts in nature, the series is influenced by the leaves of the eucalypt trees found in the forests of Western Australia. Each piece is individually hand crafted and finished. For Tim, the pieces have evolved to represent growth and change. With almost two decades of design experience, Tim’s work is influenced by graphics, unique forms and an eye-catching use of colour. He is intrigued by the repetition of forms and shapes, creating layers, links and patterns. These elements combine strikingly in the custom designed architectural door series produced in conjunction with Malcolm Harris.
Recently, Whiteman has just introduced PROTEA – a striking new
lighting design range. (Pictured right).
For more information download the PROTEA brochure here.
To contact Tim Whiteman, please visit his website: www.cooeeco.com
Bethamy Linton is a fourth generation West Australian silversmith. The Linton workshop was established in 1908 by James Walter Robert Linton (Beth’s great grandfather), a British trained painter and teacher of art. Since then, through Beth’s grandfather and father, the Linton family has continued its strong relationship with the West Australian cultural sector, championing a rare combination of traditional silversmithing techniques with modern applications. Many pieces by the Linton family, including Linton Silver - a range of cutlery which Beth and her father John continue to produce today - are represented in state and national galleries across Australia, as well as many important private collections internationally.
Beth started her training as a silversmith in the Linton workshop with her father John in the early 1990s, later working as an apprentice jeweller with Kailis Broome Pearls and with silversmith and jeweller David Cruikshank in New South Wales.
Where is Midland Atelier?
Midland Atelier is located on Yelverton Drive, Midland. Housed within the Midland Railway workshops, the site is open to the public by appointment only or through organised events. This is due to ongoing construction within the site. The security gate entrance can be found on this map.
Event Bookings
If you would like your event to be held at Midland Atelier, or for more information, please contact Kara Pinakis on (08) 9226 2799 or kara@form.net.au
Support Us
To show your support for Midland Atelier or any of its facilities, please contact FORM or leave us a message on Twitter or Facebook.
FORM
357 Murray Street
Perth, Western Australia 6000
E. mail@form.net.au
T. +61 8 9226 2799
FORM is an independent cultural organisation which works to enhance Western Australia’s competitiveness and creativity through creative, cultural and social capacity building projects.
www.form.net.au
Awkward Beauty is an interdisciplinary collaboration between Helen Britton, Perth garment designer Justine McKnight and Perth photographer Michelle Taylor. The exhibition takes the complex notion of ‘beauty’ and spins a multi-layered, multi-material narrative around this; a narrative which is imbedded within the vast physicality of a 17 hectare historic railway workshop site.
Each artist has created a body of 10 works (jewellery, garments, photography) as a direct response to the work created by the others. The work of all three artists is informed and inspired by the aesthetics, spatiality and suggestions of identity encompassed within the Midland Railway Workshops.
The railway workshops are in themselves an awkward beauty: at once majestic, fragile, industrial and domestic. Largely untouched and unrenovated, the historic workshops are poised in a rare and fleeting space between a crumbling history and a tangible future. As a photographic artist Taylor has captured this space, creating a visual narrative through her placement of Britton’s jewellery and McKnight’s garments among walls, floors, cornices, windows, shadows and shafted sunlight.
CONTACT DETAILS
Venue: Midland Atelier, at the Midland Railway Workshops, Perth.
This exhibition has now closed. For futher information, please contact FORM.
Contact FORM:
T +61 8 9226 2799 pr
E mail@form.net.au
www.form.net.au
Internships
Midland Atelier also accepts a small intake of local, interstate or international design students and graduates who spend a designated period of time working and learning in the hands-on environment of Midland Atelier. Design interns are monitored and guided by senior designers who provide critical peer review of their design process and assistance with technical skills and use of machinery and equipment. Midland Atelier has welcomed students from the prestigious Ensci-Les Atelier in Paris, France and graduates from the Canberra School of Art.
Current Pattern Shop interns include:
- Brianna Russell, Australian School of Fine Wood, Dwellingup
- Guy Eddington, Central TAFE, Perth
- Daniel Stewarthood RMIT University, Melbourne
- Claire Morgan, Central TAFE, Perth
- Jack White, Bucks New University, United Kingdom
To find out more about the Midland Atelier Internship Program please contact us.
Residential
Midland Atelier sits at the heart of the Midland Railway Workshops, one of the largest collections of early 20th century industrial heritage buildings in the Southern Hemisphere. The Workshops cover a 17 hectare site and are part of broader urban redevelopment in Midland.
The Workshops are being revitalised and will be home to a diversity of uses including Midland Atelier, a new Super GP Clinic, education facilities, performance arts spaces, events and festivals, hospitality offerings and residential accommodation.
The Midland Redevelopment Authority is managing the establishment residential developments surrounding the Workshops and throughout Midland. The prestigious Woodbridge Lakes development has already sold through, and demand is high for further developments.
If you are interested in making this revitalised urban centre at the gateway to the Swan Valley, Guildford and the Perth Hills your home, please contact the Midland Redevelopment Authority for more information:
Details
Midland Redevelopment Authority
Railway Institute Building
Corner Helena Street and Yelverton Drive
MIDLAND WA 6056
PO Box 1335
MIDLAND WA 6936
Telephone: (08) 9374 5500
Fax: (08) 9250 2437
Email: mra@mra.wa.gov.au
Warren Langley - Tower of Memory
Located in front of the Foundry, the towers which have been named Tower of Memory 1 and Tower of Memory 2 (18m and 6m tall) and other lighting features are the works of acclaimed Australian artist Warren Langley.
Comissioned by the MRA, the towers are made of rusting steel, polycarbonate diffuser and light-emitting diodes. The smaller works use similar illumination technology to draw attention to architectural elements like a gabled roof, steel beam and circular windows.
These two spectacular new Midland landmarks, are tall towers illuminated with colour at night.
Michael Fletcher is a West Australian videographer who specialises in landscape video. Michael’s background in still photography allowed him to develop a strong eye for composition before developing his skills as a ‘one-man production team’ in capturing moving pictures, producing and editing video.
He has been in partnership with his brother, photographer Christian Fletcher, at Christian Fletcher Photo Images, since 2001 establishing his film production in 2007 as an addition to the studios successful still photography medium.
Combining with photographer Christian Fletcher, Michael was the winner of the 2011 AIPP Fusion Photographer of the Year award. The footage was shot within the Midland Railway Workshops.
Michael Fletcher and Christian Fletcher, The Rail Yard (2011), Film and still photography, Video by Michael Fletcher
Matthew Harding is a diverse and innovative Australian artist and designer engaged in a practice spanning sculpture, public art and design. A graduate of Canberra School of Art, Matthew’s training in the visual arts, construction industries and various craft traditions enabling him to push boundaries of materials and process. Two time winner of the Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award, Matthew’s work encompasses cutting edge technologies through to traditional methods in wood, stone and bronze.
Matthew's commitment to the development of Australia's design identity has seen him lecture in design at the Canberra School of Art and speak at several national and international design forums. Whether carving delicate fine art pieces, prototyping designs for production or working on large-scale public sculpture; Matthew’s desire is to make objects that feed the spirit.
Your Support is Invaluable
You can make a difference to the future of Digital Media in WA
Are you are interested in space at the Foundry Digital Media Hub - or just want to show your support for this exciting transformational project? Please complete this short form to indicate your support for a Digital Media Hub that will support the industry with access to specialised infrastructure and equipment, support services and programming to cultivate cross-sector innovation and new entrepreneurial endeavours.
Click here to show your support
For additional information, please contact FORM:
E: mail@form.net.au
T: (08) 9226 2799
The Hon Eric Ripper MLA
Leader of the Opposition, Western Australia
"The proposed Digital Media Hub is a vita l piece of infrastructure to grow this industry and its potential. By fostering cross-sector collaborations, addressing space and equipment needs, building an active community of practitioners, and providing support to grow the industry, the Hub will be an important means of realising the potential of digital media and taking the creative industries into new formats. Its virtual offering wi ll enable these benefits to be extended through WA's booming regions."
You can view this letter of support here
John Poynton AM CitWA
Co-Founder and Executive Chairman
Azure Capital
"As an entrepreneur and a supporter of innovation with a background in capital investment, I'm an advocate for growing entrepreneurship in WA. With more and more businesses reliant on new technologies and digital media, the Digital Media Hub will offer the infrastructure necessary to support growth of digital media practice, a centralised community of interest, greater skills exchange and application of digital media across industries to generate greater economic value.
Given Western Australia's net loss of creative talent, its low R&D expenditure outside the resource industry, and its low rates of venture capital, the State needs support to increase capacity for innovation."
You can view this letter of support here.
Chandan Ahuja (India)
Portraits of Urban India
“Like many others, I started with street and travel photography. Working for magazines gave me an opportunity to shift my focus, and now I document urban traits, the psychology and thought processes of the social transition of which I’m a part. Today, photography has become a medium for self development. My practice of this art is now more instinctive. It catalyses me to see things in a worldly perspective, provides me with self awareness and understanding of my surroundings. My projects are not only a strong expression of my feelings but also an urban documentation of zeitgeist."
“Photography was incidental and impulsive for me. Naturally, my family and well wishers had a more secure corporate career path prescribed for me. My passion for photography started with an introduction to a photo feature on Indira Gandhi in a news magazine, jewelled with photographs by Raghu Rai, while I was still in school. One image in particular captured my attention, in which Ms.Gandhi was photographed sitting on her desk with a number of ministers standing, waiting for their orders all in conclusive submission. This, in its simplicity, showed the power of the medium. After ten years of association with Raghu Rai, and practicing the orthodox Guru Shishya (master – apprentice) tradition, I now realize I was more interested in the author of the image, and the story he narrated within. Growing up without a father I had always missed a strong male figure who would guide me, discipline me and most of all bond with me. This obsessive inspiration had its apparent downfall too. My ideologies got coloured by his perspectives; my thoughts were borrowed from him. Soon, I felt the need to find my own voice and opinion, in photography and otherwise, outside the strong influence of my mentor. The process of learning was easy but to unlearn was just the opposite, keeping in mind not to lose the relevance and value of what I've experienced, and the honest and genuine environment in which I have experienced it. With this began a new approach and mindset towards the medium.”
Images © Chandan Ahuja.
Sohrab Hura (India):
Benares, Holi and The Naga
Sadhus at the Ardh Kumbh Mela
“I’d rather experience a photo/work that tears my heart out
from the inside,” Sohrab Hura says, “it is very important to me
that photography doesn’t allow the viewer to remain the same
after having seen it.”
In his series on Benares, a holy city located on the sacred Ganga
River, Hura invites us into the inner sanctum of the city’s places
of worship, prayer and mourning. In Holi, a religious festival
celebrated by Hindus in Spring, Hura captures exuberant
crowds, transporting the viewer into the noisy, spontaneous,
playful and sometimes frenzied activity. Another view of ritual
life in India is shown in The Naga Sadhus at the Ardh Kumbh Mela:
a religious gathering celebrated every six years on the Ganga
River at Haridwar and Allahabad, by spiritual ascetics, followers
of the Shiva sect, representatives of Lord Shiva.
In his brief career, Hura has already established himself as one
of India’s most talented photographers, having exhibited in
Bangladesh, Cambodia, France, Japan, the Netherlands and
the USA. Among his many accolades, he has been awarded the
Indian Press Award twice, the Ramnath Goenka Award twice,
and been selected for the prestigious World Press Photo Joop
Masterclass, in 2009.
Images © Sohrab Hura.
Michelle Taylor (Australia)
Awkward Beauty: Photographer's Cut
Western Australian photographer Michelle Taylor is a creative resident at the Midland Atelier. Her recent body of work, Awkward Beauty, was created on site at the Midland Railway Workshop in collaboration with Munich-based
contemporary jeweller Helen Britton, and Perth garment designer Justine McKnight. The series spins a multi-layered, multi-material narrative around the Workshops site, exploring the complex notion of ‘beauty’ through a process of exchange, reaction, interpretation and collaboration, in which the artists created work in direct response to each other.
Taylor’s experience working as a photographer and journalist in the fashion meccas of Milan, Paris, New York and London is on display in these sumptuous images, yet she also moves beyond the tropes of traditional commercial photography by adopting an ‘aesthetic of displacement’.
“Through the use of natural light and the imperfection of film, the images
are just as much about what’s not there as what is,” she states. “The union and uniformity is undone by the suggestion of something a little ‘off’ within the image. This is the real life of the poetically unbalanced, the awkwardly beautiful.”
Michelle Taylor will show a personal selection of images in Awkward Beauty: Photographer’s Cut as part of Divergence: Photographs from Elsewhere.
Location: The Water Tower and surrounding buildings, Midland Railway Workshops.
Images © Michelle Taylor
In April 2011 Midland Atelier secured their largest commission yet through Woods Bagot Architects for Wesfarmers Executive Level 12 fit out.
Led by senior designers, Jon Goulder and Adam Cruikshank, the commission has allowed the designers at the Atelier, for the first time, to work as a production team to deliver large scale reception consoles and a suite of furniture, including occasional chairs, coffee tables, a credenza and a large seatscape designed by Jon Goulder that will form part of Wesfarmers permanent art collection.
Nick Statham is a sculptor and furniture designer-maker from New South Wales who relocated with his family to Perth in February, 2011 to take up permanent designer-in-residence role at the Midland Atelier.
In 2010, Nick joined the Pattern shop for two months to assist the emerging designer-makers with skills support and development on the Wesfarmers commission. He saw the broad physical scope of the workshop as an inspirational platform on which to develop new work and collaborate on commissions and has since relocated to Perth on a permanent basis.
Nick studied Landscape Architecture before studying at Sturt in 1999. He has since collaborated on design projects nationally and internationally and has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions since 2003 whilst also working as a regular tutor at the Sturt School for Wood. Broad industry experience with Stuart pianos and work as a ships carpenter has shaped his practice. Currently his work, predominantly in wood, is characterised by the spare use of material processed with maximum efficiency to produce natural and geometric forms.
Nick is currently developing a body of work for a group exhibition with mentor and internationally renowned furniture design, David Trubridge, opening in February 2013 at the FORM Gallery, Perth. The exhibition will explore the designers' shared experience of travelling to Western Australia’s remote Pilbara region.
In 2003 Henry studied furniture design at ANU followed by the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. Henry worked at Midland Atelier in 2009, and has since started his own business in Sydney. His designs are produced in Australia and sold through Anibou.
Contact: www.henrypilcher.com
West Australian jeweller Helena Bogucki was a resident at the Pattern Shop until 2011, adding her distinctive fusion of jewellery design and historical-social research to the Atelier’s increasingly diverse skill base.
A former participant in FORM’s Designing Futures cluster program, Helena was one of six WA jewellers selected by the curatorial team to create work for the April 2009 Illicit Making jewellery exhibition at FORM Gallery. Helena’s practice has since gone from strength to strength: she was recently honoured with an invitation to exhibit her work at influential Melbourne gallery e.g.etal, with a large scale installation opening October 2009.
Her jewellery designs, which stem from meticulous research into, and intriguing documentation of, museum and other historical collections, set Helena apart as a unique designer with captivating methodologies. If you would like more information about Helena, please visit her website: www.helenabogucki.com
Residential
Midland Atelier sits at the heart of the Midland Railway Workshops, one of the largest collections of early 20th century industrial heritage buildings in the Southern Hemisphere. The Workshops cover a 17 hectare site and are part of broader urban redevelopment in Midland.
The Workshops are being revitalised and will be home to a diversity of uses including Midland Atelier, a new Super GP Clinic, education facilities, performance arts spaces, events and festivals, hospitality offerings and residential accommodation.
The Midland Redevelopment Authority is managing the establishment residential developments surrounding the Workshops and throughout Midland. The prestigious Woodbridge Lakes development has already sold through, and demand is high for further developments.
If you are interested in making this revitalised urban centre at the gateway to the Swan Valley, Guildford and the Perth Hills your home, please contact the Midland Redevelopment Authority for more information:
Details
Midland Redevelopment Authority
Railway Institute Building
Corner Helena Street and Yelverton Drive
MIDLAND WA 6056
PO Box 1335
MIDLAND WA 6936
Telephone: (08) 9374 5500
Fax: (08) 9250 2437
Email: mra@mra.wa.gov.au
This rich history is still being celebrated at the Midland Railway Workshops and the Midland Atelier through programs such as exhibitions and residencies inspired by the site and its people, and through events such as Behind the Scenes. (link to) The Midland Atelier aims to honour and build on the tradition of skilled trades, fine craftsmanship and innovation that has been central to the history of the site, continuing this tradition in a contemporary form through professional practices focused on sophisticated design and creative development.
The Midland Railway Workshops were created to maintain and construct steam locomotives, carriages, wagons, tracks, signals and station furniture for the West Australian Government Railways.
Replacing the original Fremantle workshops (which opened in 1886), work first began in 1897 on the three main blocks, the Power House, Pattern Shop, Foundry and the Chief Engineers Office was completed by 1904. Following the transfer of all machinery and staff to Midland by 1905, the workshops quickly grew to employ 1,200 men by 1909.
Given that the population of the surrounding district East Guildford (later renamed Midland Junction, and finally Midland) was only 4,500, the Midland Railway Workshops contributed strongly to the development to the surrounding residential and commercial districts.
The original buildings constructed in 1904 and extensions to these dating from 1911 to 1914 remain largely intact and retain a high proportion of original fabric. It is the only major railway workshop in Western Australia and one of the few early 20th century industrial sites in the State .The workshops provide evidence of the developing technological processes associated with the fabrication and repair or railway rolling stock in Western Australia from the early 1900s to the closure of the workshops in 1994.
At their peak, the workshops employed over 4,000 people and the significance of the site was formally recognised in December 2004 when the Workshops were included in the list of Western Australian Heritage Icons. This award recognised that the site was the most important engineering establishment in the State .
During World War II the workshops played an important role in the manufacture of munitions and other defence equipment which accounted for a full third of its production. As men left to enlist, new ground was broken as women were employed for the first time and played a prominent role at the workshops. Retooling for the war effort involved also major changes to the Foundry and the Flanging Shop.
In April 1993, the then Richard Court Liberal State Government announced that the Workshops would be eventually closed. Despite a number of protests and rallies to save the Workshops the workshops closed on Friday 4 March 1994.
Midland Redevelopment Authority is currently redeveloping the site. The Midland Saleyards at the eastern end of the Railway Workshop site and all related businesses and properties have been relocated.
The workforce of the workshops had a rich history and, since closing, there have been projects to record oral history and collect information about the place and people involved. These include;
For more information, explore the following links:
- Kevin Mountain’s Tall Tales & True Stories of the midland Railway Workshops
- Midland Railway Workshops, developed by Murdoch University
- The Workshops – An Urban Revolution, developed by the Midland Redevelopment Authority
This rich history is still being celebrated at the Midland Railway Workshops and the Midland Atelier through programs such as exhibitions and residencies inspired by the site and its people, and through events such as Behind the Scenes. The Midland Atelier aims to honour and build on the tradition of skilled trades, fine craftsmanship and innovation that has been central to the history of the site, continuing this tradition in a contemporary form through professional practices focused on sophisticated design and creative development.
Building a Steak of Creativity showcases the results of David Bielander’s collaboration with Michelle Taylor. During his West Australian residency the Swiss-born jeweller met many people from Perth’s cultural sector and this exhibition captures Bielander’s interactions with, and perceptions of, the city’s cultural genealogy via a series of life-sized photographic portraits of some of Perth’s creative personalities taken by Taylor on Coogee Beach near Fremantle.
Bielander has created jewellery for each portrait and personally selected each subject. His selection of a niche but broad selection of local creative people, combined with Taylor’s photographs which capture the saturated light and colour typical of Perth beaches, offer a super-sized postcard of Western Australia’s social and cultural identity. The exhibition title is a reference to FORM’s tagline and a play on the state’s cultural dreams and idiosyncrasies.
These exhibitions are designed and delivered by FORM, a Western Australian cultural not-for-profit which develops and advocates for excellence in creativity across communities, disciplines and sectors. Midland Atelier is a major project and a partnership between FORM and the Midland Redevelopment Authority.
CONTACT DETAILS
Venue: Midland Atelier, at the Midland Railway Workshops, Perth. Enter at security gate on Yelverton Drive.
Opening night: Thursday October 6, 2011 from 6pm
Exhibition runs: October 7 - November 4, 2011
Mon-Fri: 10am-5pm
Saturday: 10am-5pm
Contact FORM:
T +61 8 9226 2799 pr
E mail@form.net.au
www.form.net.au
The Hon Dr Mal Bryce AO
Chairman of iVEC
"As a high value-add industry sector, digital media represents an important area of opportunity for WA. The employment growth for the information media and telecommunications industry in Western Australia is expected to exceed the national employment growth in this field. As well as being an important industry in its own right, digital media adds substantial value to productivity, IP generation and maximising output across other industries. This value-add is vital in a State that is characterised by skills shortages, and a single dominant industry which makes economic diversification imperative.
That makes digital media an economic opportunity for WA that must be captured."
View this letter of support here.
Some outcomes of FORM's long-term Pilbara Project will be shown at Midland: The Pilbara Project: Photographer’s Cut celebrates and promotes the Pilbara as a landscape which evokes grandeur and drama. This series of images have been selected by the photographers’ themselves - Dr Les Walking, Tony Hewitt, Christian Fletcher, and Peter Eastway. The luminous and monumental neon electro- atmospherics of the port and mining industry will showcase the vibrancy of the Pilbara resources sector, illustrating the importance of this trade and commerce hub for the Indian Ocean rim.
Nigel Bennet (Italy/UK):
Silence Has an Echo
“These photos were taken in Bangkok soon after the May 2010 crackdown on anti-government protesters by the Thai military which left over ninety people dead and the central shopping district of Ratchaprasong burned to the ground. However, the work is less concerned with the spectacle of political violence itself, but rather the individual experiences of those ordinary people left to live in a society deeply fractured by the power games of their nation’s political elite.”
Nigel Bennet’s work has been shown across North America, Europe and Asia. He has made several short films, two of which have been screened at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2011 he was awarded a Santo Foundation Individual Artist Grant and won the Conscientious Portfolio Competition. In 2012 he will be undertaking residency projects in Italy, the UK, Japan and Australia. He is represented by Christinger De Mayo Gallery, Switzerland.
Images © Nigel Bennet.
Martin Parr (UK):
Selections from Black Country Stories
FORM is pleased to present selected works from Magnum photographer Martin Parr’s Black Country Stories series as part of Divergence: Photographs from Elsewhere.
A commission by British arts organization Multistory, Black Country Stories was created over the course of a year Parr spent documenting life in the borough of Sandwell, in the English Midlands. The series’ title comes from a nickname for the region dating from the 1840s, when pollution from local industry covered the area in soot. "With its famous industrial past, there was going to be an inevitable sense of decline," Parr explains, "but what I had not counted on was the revitalization that the many immigrant groups had brought to the area. There are active communities from many parts of the world: India, Pakistan of course, and the inevitable influx of Poles but also Somalis, West Indians and many others." His images document this richly diverse community in factories, markets, temples, mosques, churches, cafes, clubs and pubs.
Martin Parr was born in England in 1952. He studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic and rapidly established himself as a leading name in international photography, becoming a full member of Magnum Photographic Corporation in 1994. In 2004 he was appointed Professor of Photography at the University of Wales, Newport, and engaged as guest Artistic Director for Rencontres D’Arles. He was also guest curator at the 2008 New York Photo Festival and the 2010 Brighton Photo Biennial. In 2002, Parr was honoured with a retrospective at the Barbican Art Gallery and the National Media Museum, London which toured Europe for the next five years. His Parrworld exhibition of his personal collections of objects, books and photography toured Europe from 2008-2010. He won the Eric Solomon Award in 2006, in recognition of his contribution to photojournalism and the prestigious Baume et Mercier Award in 2008.
Image © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos / Commissioned by Multistory
Jacob Lehrer (Western Australia)
STRUT dance 2012 SEED artist-in-residence:
Beat That
"For this project I am interested in exploring ‘difference’ and ‘that which is not I’. This creative research and development process embraces the idea of ‘not-knowing’ where we will end up. The dancers are as important to this process as the choreographer, and the work will emerge as an iterative conversation between them and me. The dancers were very deliberately chosen for their personal and cultural background, for example, Peter Fares is a young man of Syrian-Lebanese background. I am interested in how this can illuminate, for us in the dance laboratory as well as for our audience, the work’s broader themes of difference, othering, and how we, as a culture, choose to include or exclude certain people and groups.
In the past, with my long-time collaborator David Corbet, I’ve explored the way strong emotion can be conveyed through the body using shape. We were inspired by Nijinsky’s idea that the face is (merely) the flower of the body. For example, discomfort may be explored by seeking and following the most uncomfortable shapes a body can achieve, and while discomfort may be registered on a dancer’s face, this is only the barometer for the conditions that are occurring within the dancer’s body.
Typically, dancers understand shape as a geometric form as this is what their training teaches. But shape is more than that - shape has psychological and emotional content, and when we find ways to allow personal stories to inform physical shape the result is a very powerful expression that can be read and experienced by an audience. In my work, it is very important that dance is recognised and presented as a primary art form, as sufficient in itself. However my work is not inaccessible and exclusive, and I want the audience to be able to see themselves within the work. Exploring cultural baggage and ‘otherness’, and in using personal stories manifested within powerful physical shapes I want my work to move the audience in unexpected ways."
Jacob Lehrer is a dancer and choreographer. He was born in Canberra with parents who are a mixture of Romanian, Austrian and Israeli, English, Scottish, Irish and Mongolian. He started dancing ballet in Canberra when he was 7 years old. "It was to win a bet with my father who told me that ballet dancers were tougher than footy players," Jacob explains. He graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Dance in the mid 90’s, emerging as a contemporary dancer with a strong interest in Contact Improvisation and Ideokinesis.
After a lengthy career as an international dancer & performer with companies such as DV8 and Strange Fruit, Jacob returned to work in Australia to focus on developing his own work. His current practice is influenced by choreographers such as Deborah Hay (US post-modernist), Steve Paxton (US post-modernist/ experimental) and Lloyd Newson (UK director of DV8 physical theatre).
Jacob is now developing a new site-specific piece Beat That based within the Foundry Building at the Midland Railway Workshop as part of a STRUT dance SEED residency. Thanks to the Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts’ Future Moves initiative, STRUT dance is able to offer these SEED residencies to WA choreographers, supporting them in the initial ‘seed’ stages of their projects by allowing them to explore new ideas in the studio towards the creation of new dance work. Jacob is one of only four choreographers to be awarded a STRUT SEED residency in 2012 and this support has allowed him to start work on this new site-specific piece with his creative team.
The location of the residency and the intended performance space for the piece (the Foundry Building at the Midland Atelier) plays a key role in Jacob’s creative process. "When I rang FORM and was told about The Foundry, with its sand floor… I couldn’t resist," Jacob says. "It is a beautiful space to work in, very inspiring with a character of its own. So I’ll be using the Foundry Building as a dance laboratory to develop the work’s broad theme of ‘difference’ and ‘other’, working with my team of performers in the space to generate new choreographic material."
Jacob Lehrer and dancers will perform Beat That on Saturday March 17th 2012 at The Foundry Building, Midland Atelier.
Please visit the FORM website - http://www.form.net.au/ or STRUT dance website - http://www.strutdance.org.au for more details.
Images © Andrew Carmichael.
Jacob Lehrer (Western Australia)
STRUT dance 2012 SEED artist-in-residence:
Beat That
Jacob Lehrer is an Australian dancer and choreographer of Romanian, Austrian, Israeli, English, Scottish, Irish and Mongolian descent. He started dancing ballet in Canberra when he was 7 years old. "It was to win a bet with my father who told me that ballet dancers were tougher than footy players," Jacob explains. He graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Dance in the mid 90’s, emerging as a contemporary dancer with a strong interest in Contact Improvisation and Ideokinesis.
After a lengthy career as an international dancer and performer with companies such as DV8 and Strange Fruit, Jacob returned to work in Australia to focus on developing his own work.
Jacob has developed a new site-specific piece Beat That based within the Foundry Building at the Midland Railway Workshop as part of a STRUT dance SEED residency. Thanks to the Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts’ Future Moves initiative, STRUT dance is able to offer these SEED residencies to WA choreographers, supporting them in the initial ‘seed’ stages of their projects by allowing them to explore new ideas in the studio towards the creation of new dance work. Jacob is one of only four choreographers to be awarded a STRUT SEED residency in 2012 and this support has allowed him to start work on this new site-specific piece with his creative team. Of the work, Jacob states:
"For this project I am interested in exploring ‘difference’ and ‘that which is not I’. This creative research and development process embraces the idea of ‘not-knowing’ where we will end up. The dancers are as important to this process as the choreographer, and the work will emerge as an iterative conversation between them and me. The dancers were very deliberately chosen for their personal and cultural background, for example, Peter Fares is a young man of Syrian-Lebanese background. I am interested in how this can illuminate, for us in the dance laboratory as well as for our audience, the work’s broader themes of difference, othering, and how we, as a culture, choose to include or exclude certain people and groups.
In the past, with my long-time collaborator David Corbet, I’ve explored the way strong emotion can be conveyed through the body using shape. We were inspired by Nijinsky’s idea that the face is (merely) the flower of the body. For example, discomfort may be explored by seeking and following the most uncomfortable shapes a body can achieve, and while discomfort may be registered on a dancer’s face, this is only the barometer for the conditions that are occurring within the dancer’s body
Typically, dancers understand shape as a geometric form as this is what their training teaches. But shape is more than that - shape has psychological and emotional content, and when we find ways to allow personal stories to inform physical shape the result is a very powerful expression that can be read and experienced by an audience. In my work, it is very important that dance is recognised and presented as a primary art form, as sufficient in itself. However my work is not inaccessible and exclusive, and I want the audience to be able to see themselves within the work. Exploring cultural baggage and ‘otherness’, and in using personal stories manifested within powerful physical shapes I want my work to move the audience in unexpected ways."
The location of the residency and the intended performance space for the piece (the Foundry Building at the Midland Atelier) plays a key role in Jacob’s creative process. "When I rang FORM and was told about The Foundry, with its sand floor…I couldn’t resist," Jacob says. "It is a beautiful space to work in, very inspiring with a character of its own. So I’ll be using the Foundry Building as a dance laboratory to develop the work’s broad theme of ‘difference’ and ‘other’, working with my team of performers in the space to generate new choreographic material."
Jacob Lehrer and dancers will perform Beat That on Saturday March 17th 2012 at The Foundry Building, Midland Atelier, in association with FORM's Divergence: Photographs from Elsewhere program.
Images © Andrew Carmichael.
Midland Heritage Precinct Courtyard Public Art Project
Commissioned by the City of Swan, the Midland Atelier - led by renowned Australian designer Jon Goulder and emerging designer Alex Fossilo - is designing and producing a sculptural benchseat and wall installation to bring visual dynamism and encourage greater interaction with an important public space in Midland’s town centre.
The proposed site for the commission is in the newly redeveloped Midland Heritage Precinct courtyard, located between Helena Street and the Old Great Northern Highway. The precinct comprises the old Midland Courthouse, which is an integral building in the historical heart of Midland, and the old Water Supply Office. These buildings have been restored and are adjacent to the Midland Public Library, the space in between the buildings consists of hard landscape.
This project presents an exciting opportunity to bring design excellence to this central and revitalising area of the town centre, and enhance the experience of the area for local residents and visitors.
Jessica Jubb is an Australian born Contemporary Jeweller. Her experience encompasses a variety of artistic mediums and she has a keen interest in art history and theory. Jubb is a visual arts honours graduate of Edith Cowan University, where she also studied Psychology.
Growing up in the hills east of Perth, Jubb was encouraged by creative parents to appreciate life among the delicate details of the natural world. Her love of the environment elevated her interest in science and art where she finds inspiration in the historically elastic ways by which the world is quantified and qualified.
Fascinated by the way new meaning can be created from the pairing of unexpected materials, Jubb’s hand crafted wearables are a composite of selected and collected fabrics, existing objects, hand-worked metal and creative stitches.
When not travelling and searching for treasure, Jubb can be found teetering atop paradoxical fences -art and craft, old and new, form and function, 2D and 3D, masculine and feminine, religion and science - as she explores conceptual boundaries that inspire her contemporary jewellery.
Commissions
As the managing body of Midland Atelier, FORM’s commission service connects client with designer: from initial concept through to construction and installation of furniture, lighting and other aspects of internal and external built environments, including public art and art procurement.
Commissioning a project through Midland Atelier ensures:
A high quality designer product, customised to each project;
- Support of the WA design industry;
- The opportunity to meet the designer and see place of manufacture;
- Access to state-of-the-art design and fabrication facility.
Commission clients have included Wesfarmers, Woods Bagot, DLA Philips Fox, Brookfield Multiplex, Hassell, Town of Port Hedland, Lottery West, the City of Swan and the Shires of Kalamunda and East Pilbara as well as private residential clients.
To download FORM’s full Commissions brochure click here.
Michelle Taylor graduated from Edith Cowan University, Western Australia in 1998 with a BA in Photomedia. After graduating she moved to Europe where she was based in Milan, Italy until 2006. Working principally between New York, Milan, Paris and London within the fashion industry both as photographer and writer Michelle Taylor then returned to Australia. She is currently an adjunct lecturer at Edith Cowan University, writes regularly for The West Australian Newspaper and is a creative resident at Midland Atelier, a creative hub.
Her work has recently been included in exhibitions in Germany, Italy, Tokyo and Australia.
You can visit her website at: http://www.fotomich.com.au/
Business
Midland is a strategically important location in Western Australia, situated at the nexus of major transport links and forming a gateway to regional Western Australia. Just 17km from the Perth CBD, Midland forms part of the City of Swan and Perth’s Eastern Region. The strategic importance of Midland has been highlighted by the Western Australian Planning Commission’s Directions 2031 which identified Midland as one of ten Strategic Metropolitan Centres in the Perth and Peel Region.
Midland is an area poised for growth.
Its location has traditionally positioned Midland as a provider of services to both Perth’s Eastern Region and Regional areas. This role as a hub and gateway is expanding, with a number of significant investments being made in the area, including a new premier health campus, Super GP Clinic, education facilities, improved transport corridors and connection with the airport, revitalised train station, WA Police transit and communications facility, and significant residential developments. These investments are transforming Midland and the surrounding region into an exciting area of opportunity.
Positioned directly on the train line, the Railway Workshops provide a significant historic site close to the town centre in an accessible, gateway location.
If you are considering making Midland the platform for your business or developments, please contact the Midland Redevelopment Authority.
Midland Redevelopment Authority
Railway Institute Building
Corner Helena Street and Yelverton Drive
MIDLAND WA 6056
PO Box 1335
MIDLAND WA 6936
Telephone: (08) 9374 5500
Fax: (08) 9250 2437
Email: mra@mra.wa.gov.au
2011
- ROA: Belgium, urban/street art
- Helen Britton: Western Australia/Germany, jewellery
- David Bielander: Switzerland/Munich, jewellery
- David Trubridge: New Zealand, furniture, environmental and public art and mentor
2010
- German Jauregui: Colombia, furniture design
- Helen Britton: Western Australia/Germany, jewellery
- David Bielander: Switzerland/Munich, jewellery
- Nick Statham: New South Wales, furniture and timber
2009
- Matthew Harding: Victoria, sculpture and public art
- David Trubridge: New Zealand, furniture, environmental and public art
After graduating from Landscape Architecture with Honours in 2007, Alex Fossilo began working as a furniture maker in Western Australia’s south west, where he gained extensive technical skill and experience in high-end furniture production. Since then, he has been devoted to establishing himself as a designer-craftsman of truly unique works.
In 2008 Alex won the Australian Furniture Industry Student award for his Mantis Chair. This afforded him the opportunity to spend three months travelling through Europe focusing on furniture, art and design. Alex visited various furniture manufacturers and also attended several short courses, one of which was a Vitra Design Museum workshop in France, with Brazilian Design icons Fernando and Humberto Campana.
In early 2010 Alex was offered the opportunity to join the Midland Atelier collective and moved to Perth to further establish his design practice. During this time he has worked on the Atelier’s largest commission to date, the production of a range of high-end reception furniture for Wesfarmers new Level 12 fitout, in addition to solo works and a host of private commissions.
In 2012 he premiered his first solo exhibition, once upon a time when the pigs chewed lime in the Atelier's Water Tower studio, with the support of a Young People and the Arts Creative Development Fellowship from the Western Australian Department for Culture and the Arts.
Tom Stephens BA JP MLA
Member for Pilbara
"The infrastructure of the Digital Media Hub will provide a platform for the development of virtual services, online communities of interest, and virtual support structures. This virtual access will aid in opening up the potential of digital new media to art centres and communities. In addition, the Aboriginal Creative Development studio that is intended for development alongside the physical Digital Media Hub will enable Indigenous artists from the regions to access facilities as visiting artists. This physical hub will be equally important to the Indigenous populations in the Midland and surrounding regions, where a higher population is found proportionally than across the metro area.
In addition to the benefits to Indigenous communities, regional communities generally stand to gain from the anticipated e-services and e-innovations across industries that would emerge from provision of much needed, comprehensive infrastructure and equipment, combined with a cross-disciplinary programming focus, as the Digital Media Hub intends to provide. The location of this Hub alongside new health developments in Midland, for instance, will encourage e-health innovations."
To view this letter of support click here.
Managed by FORM, Midland Atelier is Western Australia’s first creative and design industry hub, hosting international creative residents, and The Pattern Shop studio. The vision is for the Midland Atelier to encompass digital media, jewellery, metal, public art and large scale production facilities, as well as a gallery, retail and Indigenous arts devel¬opment studios.
During Divergence: Photographs from Elsewhere, FORM invites you to explore, to interact and to get inspired by the Midland Atelier. Meet The Pattern Shop designer/makers. Be the first to see designer, Alex Fossilo’s innovative exhibition, in which he unveils the design process through sketches, drawing and the process of making; witness how the Atelier inspires innovation with photographs developed by Michelle Taylor in response to the site; and a performance piece made especially for The Foundry Building by dancer and choreographer, Jacob Lehrer.
- Alex Fossilo
- Michelle Taylor
- Jacob Lehrer
- Sam Harris
Divergence: The Photographers' Cut makes up a significant part of the FotoFreo 2012 Open Exhibition Programme and consists of exhibitions by some of the world’s most innovative photographers and photojournalists, including artists from Argentina, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Russia, Spain, Turkey, the Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States, in addition to local and national photographers.
Photographers featured include:
Chandan Ahuja (India)
Nigel Bennet (Italy/UK)
Ellen Bornkessel (Germany)
Sara Jane Boyers (USA)
Vita Buivid (Russia)
Sundari Carmody (Australia)
Neil Chowdhury (USA)
Martin Cox (USA)
Jagath Dheerasekara (Australia/Sri Lanka)
Catarina Diedrich (Spain)
Eva Fernandez (Australia)
Andrew George (USA)
Denis Glennon AO (Australia)
Natalie Grono (Australia)
Alan Hill & Kelly Hussey-Smith (Australia)
Edwin Janes (Australia)
Rhea Karam (USA/Lebanon)
Munish Khanna (India)
Andrej Kocis (Australia)
David Manley (Australia)
Prudence Murphy (Australia)
Matthew Newton (Australia)
Sarah Rhodes (Australia)
Maurizio Salvati (Australia)
Jan Schuenke (Germany)
Flavia Schuster (Argentina)
Natasha Shulte (Ukraine)
Marc Shoul (South Africa)
Lia Steele (Australia)
Michael Stone (Australia)
Gemma-Rose Turnbull (Australia)
Salih Urek (Turkey)
Elizabeth Wintle (UK)
Josh Wodak (Australia)
Art Wolfe (USA)
and
The Atomic Photographers Guild (comprising 26 international photographers)
During Divergence: Photographs from Elsewhere, FORM invites you to explore, to interact with and to get inspired by the Midland Atelier: meet The Pattern Shop designer/makers; be amongst the first to see Pattern Shop designer-in-residence Alex Fossilo’s innovative exhibition, in which he unveils the design process through sketches, drawing and the process of making; witness how the Atelier inspires innovation with photographs developed by Michelle Taylor in response to the site; and see the world premier of a performance piece made especially for The Foundry Building by dancer and choreographer, Jacob Lehrer, as part of a STRUT Dance SEED residency.
Artists activating the Midland Railway Workshops site include:
Ellen Bornkessel (Germany)
play
“Reminiscent of film stills, these images refer to real places, situations and individuals. The figures behave as though on stage, where scenes are played out against a backdrop. What appears at first to be straightforward ultimately defies interpretation that is unambiguous. The work links the boundaries between documentary and fiction.”
Ellen Bornkessel was born in Germany in 1969. She studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig and has gone on to exhibit extensively across Germany, Europe, Australia, China and the UK, including solo exhibitions in Cologne and Berlin. She is currently based in Cologne, Germany.
Images © Ellen Bornkessel.
Ketaki Sheth (India):
Twinspotting
“Ketaki Sheth’s photographs, so formally interesting, so
sharply seen, so deeply felt...”
- Salman Rushdie
Ketaki Sheth’s Twinspotting series was taken inside the
homes of the Patels, a community with a high percentage
of twins (one in every 300 people is an identical twin, while
one in 99 is fraternal). Sheth introduces us to the diasporic
immigrant community in the United Kingdom, as well
as Gujurat India, from where they originated. The notion
of ‘twin’ identities spins the series beyond picturing the
fraternal, identical, or other categorization of twins, into
a discourse and exploration on individuality, heritage and
migration.
Ketaki Sheth’s works have been exhibited across India in
France, Japan and the UK. She received the Sanskriti Award
for Indian photography (1992) and the Higashikawa Award,
Japan (2006) for Best Foreign Photographer. Her first book
Twinspotting: Photographs of Patel twins in Britain and India
published by Dewi Lewis Publishing, UK was launched in
1999 and Bombay Mix: Street Photographs was published by
Dewi Lewis Publishing and Sepia International in 2007.
Images © Ketaki Sheth. All images courtesy of the artist and Photoink.
Ninety Degrees 5 (Australia):
The Pilbara Project: Photographers' Cut
"We are fascinated in the broadest sense by places like the Pilbara, including our ignorance and insensitivity to them. We are not ‘in the Pilbara’ in the way that scientists collect and identify it. Rather,we are collecting what can’t be seen; evidence of our uncertainty, interaction, wanderings and pondering.
But what do we really know of this far away place? Very little except that it is remote and ancient, a place of extremes, both climate and distance, and cultural dislocation. What do we discover about our settler culture, our artistic presumptions, our myths and prejudices? What do we suspect we are doing, and what are we responsible for?"
- Ninety Degrees 5
"The Pilbara is a landscape of extremes, in which rare geological formations, multi-hued sweeping plains and endless skies contrast with the pulsing beat of Western Australia’s mining industry. The grandeurand drama of the Pilbara make it Western Australia’s most iconic region.
The Pilbara Project is a long-term program of exhibitions, residencies, partnerships and events established by FORM to document and celebrate the diverse characteristics of this unique place. Using photography, film, the written word, visual arts and community initiatives, the Pilbara Project seeks to shine a light not only on the region’s famed natural beauty, but also on the unique communities that comprise it: their stories, resourcefulness, ingenuity, history and future.
As part of these activities, FORM invited leading Australian photographers Peter Eastway, Christian Fletcher, Tony Hewitt and Dr. Les Walkling to explore the region throughout 2010. The outcome was the exhibition and publication,52 Weeks On: A Pilbara Project Exhibition.
The project also led to another outcome however, when the photographers formed Ninety Degrees 5, a collective that undertakes collaborative projects and creative partnerships. For inclusion in Divergence: Photographs from Elsewhere, FORM invited Ninety Degrees 5 to select works from their Pilbara Project photographs that have a personal poignancy, meaning and significance to them.
Images © Peter Eastway, Christian Fletcher, Tony Hewitt and Dr. Les Walkling.
In 2010 Western Australian Jeweller, Jessica Jubb was commissioned by the Shire of East Pilbara to create a large sculptural work for the Newman town centre.
Acacia was inspired by the acacia or wattle flower – a plant typical to the region and used extensively throughout Western Australia, particularly in the rejuvenation of mine sites.
This project presented Jessica with an exciting challenge as the skilled jewellery designer translated her intricate designs into her first large scale public art piece.
The colourful sculpture has found its new home at the Hilditch Avenue shopping centre and is part of the Shire of East Pilbara’s ongoing program for the provision of public art set to enhance Newman’s town centre.
The Midland Atelier Creative Residency program is invitation-only; however FORM welcomes expressions of interest.
To enquire please contact FORM by:
e: mail@form.net.au
t: (08) 9226 2799
John Poynton AM CitWA
Co-Founder and Executive Chairman
Azure Capital
"As an entrepreneur and a supporter of innovation with a background in capital investment, I'm an advocate for growing entrepreneurship in WA. With more and more businesses reliant on new technologies and digital media, the Digital Media Hub will offer the infrastructure necessary to support growth of digital media practice, a centralised community of interest, greater skills exchange and application of digital media across industries to generate greater economic value.
Given Western Australia's net loss of creative talent, its low R&D expenditure outside the resource industry, and its low rates of venture capital, the State needs support to increase capacity for innovation."
You can view this letter of support here.
Sara Jane Boyers & Martin Cox (USA)
WEST COAST/WEST COAST
Sara Jane Boyers is a fine art exhibiting photographer, an almost native Californian who grew up by the Southern California beach. She is also an award-winning author/editor of books for youth on topics ranging from contemporary art and poetry to civic and political activism. Boyers' photographs are characterized by a personal and intense focus on the detail of the everyday, documenting the overlooked beauty of the seemingly mundane. Through poetic abstraction, she tells a story that leaves a memory unanswered with intent to re-explore, that inspires a curiosity of the next. Her work is fuelled by her fine art background and a continuing interest in society's structure.
Martin Cox is a UK-born photographer whose work has been exhibited in galleries in the US and UK. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Martin’s projects often incorporate time scales and the presence of history, while also evoking issues of land use. His work speaks of the end of various eras, be they economic, technological or historical. A recurring theme in his photographic work is the visual evidence of communities in transition and the impact registered by them upon the landscape. His work is inspired by the places where the environment and culture rub against one another.
For WEST COAST/WEST COAST Boyers and Cox were inspired by the similarity to Los Angeles of Fremantle's geographic relationship to its own: West facing north/south coast line, a port area and older city inland. From that aesthetic starting point and using their American West Coast perspective, they created separate but complementary projects. Martin Cox's fascination with maritime history, ships and the sea itself has led him to create photography for this exhibition that involves Fremantle’s historic first known ship visits from Europeans. He combined webcam imagery from the present-day port, along with the names of the first eleven ships to visit Fremantle, superimposed over images from the wake of a vessel in Los Angeles waters. Sara Jane Boyers turns to an aspect of all ports - repair - photographed at the bustling Los Angeles Harbor and using her signature quest for beauty and detail to represent the lives and activity within a space, in this case a dry dock facility seemingly vacant but awaiting the next ship.
Top image © Sara Jane Boyers.
Bottom image © Martin Cox.
Bharat Sikka (India):
Matter
In Matter, India’s visual topography is elegantly distilled into shades of white, monochromatic blues, greys and faded silvers, with a rare punch of colour. This is a tour through Sikka’s prism, an exploration and documentation of the country as he sees it.
“From photographing the ordinary, to the dead and the alive, these images constitute things that evoke an impulsive emotion in me,” Sikka says, “they do not only merely determine the state of my mind, but also challenge the way I perceive my surroundings.”
Trained at Parson’s Institute of Design in New York, Sikka is one of India’s hottest contemporary artists. His work has been displayed in numerous national and international exhibitions and he has contributed to magazines and publications including I.D., The New Yorker, Time, Vogue and Wallpaper. Sikka is represented by Nature Morte.
Images © Bharat Sikka. All images courtesy of the artist and Nature Morte.
Divergence: Photographs from Elsewhere opened in spectacular style at the Midland Railway Workshops on Wednesday 14 March, 2012.
Over 500 guests joined the exhibiting photographers, with the exhibitions officially opened by Minister for Planning, Culture and the Arts, the Hon John Day and special guest, Mr. Richard O'Connell, Head of Community and Indigenous Affairs, BHP Billiton Iron Ore.
The exhibition programming was complemented by multimedia projections of work from (and curated by) visiting photographer and artist, Sohrab Hura and site specific works by the Midland Atelier designers-in-residence.
Images above were taken by Matt Biocich.
Left to right:
The opening speeches.
Chris Misek, Julie Nobakova, Sophie Warren and Chris Jansen.
Sohrab Hura with one of his projections.
Jo Bennett (left) with FORM's Kara Pinakis and Kyle Jeavons.
Part of Michelle Taylor's Awkward Beauty: The Photographer's Cut installation.
Sam and Yuel Harris and with Sam's work from Elsewhere.
FORM's Carolyn Karnovsky (left) and Sharmila Wood with choreographer Jacob Lehrer.
Christian Fletcher with one of his works from The Pilbara Project: Photographers' Cut.
The crowd watching one of Sohrab Hura's projections.
Matthew Lukis and Victoria Midwinter Pitt.
'Just lounging at the Atelier' installation of mini-deckchairs by Kara Pinakis, Briana Russell and Daniel Hood.
With a rich history of innovation, industry and community, situated in Perth’s eastern region nestled between the beautiful Swan Valley, Guildford and the Hills yet within easy reach of the CBD, Midland has the makings of an exciting hub and destination.
The decision to base the Atelier in Midland is a strategic one. Midland is part of Perth’s increasingly valued ‘eastern corridor’ which begins in Northbridge reaching out to the City of Swan, and is home to a growing number of creatives; a demographic which is already seeing great appeal in the Atelier.
Midland offers a range of drawcards:
Geography: On the cusp of the Swan Valley, Guildford and the Hills; at the heart of Midland centre; 20 minutes from Perth CBD. Midland has long been a key regional gateway and has been identified as a Strategic Regional Centre within Perth metro area.
Site: Few sites of this scale, value and potential for development exist, and the Atelier forms a critical part of the revitalisation of the surrounding Midland area. As the largest collection of early 20th century industrial heritage buildings in the southern hemisphere, this is an exciting site for a creative hub.
Transport: The Atelier is just 300 metres from the train station, shops and town centre. The site will be developed for walkability. Midland is within minutes from airport with upgraded connections also in development.
Property: The Atelier is adjacent to mixed residential developments on the same site, forming part of the MRA redevelopment scheme, and making this site the heart of a mixed use environment. The site is in proximity to heritage properties in Midland, and gains added value via ‘eastern corridor’ property growth.
Lifestyle: Midland offers a nexus of regional and cosmopolitan lifestyles, a drawcard for residents, families, employees and visitors. It has a diverse range of attractions.
Tourism: The Atelier, combined with City of Swan cultural infrastructure redevelopments, the surrounding Swan Valley and Hills, and the heritage of the area positions the region as a cultural ‘gateway’. The Atelier aligns with existing/ potential investment and tourism.
Industry: The Atelier is situated close to established complementary industries: wine, produce, arts and culture.
Heritage & Culture: The Railway Workshops site is testament to the region’s history of design and craftsmanship. This heritage combined with local Indigenous culture, rich ethnographic mix and the area’s food and wine pedigree, has shaped a strong brand and identity for the region.
Investment: A number of significant investment projects are either planned or underway across health, education, government, transport, defence, industrial and residential development. This significant investment focus in Midland sets it apart as an exciting area of opportunity.
John Howkins
Consultant, researcherand advisor on creative economies
Author of The Creative Economy, and Creative Ecologies
Chairman of BOP Consulting
"The Digital Media Hub proposed by FORM represents an important opportunity for Western Australia to capture the potential of this industry and compete in the global creative economy.
Other global cities are already competing aggressively in this space, and WA must act now to get competitive. Investments are being made by governments across Europe, the UK and US, as well as the substantial investments being made in China. Having developed the John Howkins Research Centre on the Creative Economy with the Shanghai Municipal Government and the Shanghai School of Creativity since 2006, I can attest to the importance attributed to this field and the significant support being channelled into the creative industries."
To view this letter of support click here.
Vita Buivid (Russia):
Rapid Eye Movement
“Ivan Shiskin’s Morning in a Pine Forest is an entire epoch, a cultural layer erected up to a kitsch level by Soviet light industry and souvenir manufacture. Practically every Soviet household owned a reproduction of Shishkin’s painting: some had it in a gold frame, others in the form of a casket, and there were also happy owners of a picture carpet that emphasised a special prosperity of the family. In Rapid Eye Movement the carpet hangs in a wood where it is used as a background for actions that interpret my dreams, raising Shishkin’s work from household kitsch to postmodern art.”
Vita Buivid is a Moscow-based photographer whose work particularly engages with the theme of kitsch. She has held numerous solo exhibitions across Russia, in the UK, Scandinavia, Europe and the US, and is represented in several international public and private collections.
Images © Vita Buivid.
Images of the Divergence Public Program, Stories From Elsewhere.
Left to right:
FORM's Andrew Nicholls (left, with fan) and Jessie Boylan from the Atomic Photographers Guild, in conversation.
Matt Newton discusses his Moonbird Boy series.
Jagath Dheerasekara discusses his Manuwangku - Beneath the Nuclear Cloud series.
Magnum photographer Martin Parr discusses his Black Country Stories series in the Midland Railway Workshops' Powerhouse building.
Martin Parr in the Powerhouse.
Iconic Indian photographer Ketaki Sheth discusses her Twinspotting series in the Powerhouse.
Ketaki Sheth in the Powerhouse.
Jacob Lehrer's Beat That dance performance in the Foundrey building.
The crowd enjoying lunch outside the Nurses' Post.
Photographs © Matt Biocich
Richard O'Connell
Head of Community and Indigenous Affairs
"We see real opportunity in the cross-disciplinary nature of the Midland Atelier, and in particular the Digital Media Hub, which we believe will foster innovation and entrepreneurship across sectors. The hub itself presents a platform for offering greater services and opportunities across the regions as well as in metropolitan Perth."
To view this letter of support, click here.
Sundari Carmody (Australia):
On Solitude
“On Solitude comprises digital prints of analogue pinhole photography alongside a series of small instant photographs (polaroids). The images are blurred pictures of domestic interiors, close-ups of the female figure and domestic objects all of which are used as a metaphor for internal experiences of solitude, loss, longing, and desire. Using these two different photographic mediums I am exploring the element of time in photography: the long exposures of the pinhole picture juxtaposed with the instant photograph speak of the contradiction of ‘capturing a moment’ and remind the viewer of the ‘loss’ that accompanies the photographic image.”
Sundari Carmody is an emerging artist working in the field of photography. Born in New South Wales in 1988, she lived in Indonesia for seventeen years before moving to Perth, Western Australia, and now resides in Adelaide, South Australia. Sundari has recently completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours majoring in photography at the South Australian School of Art in the University of South Australia. Through using different mediums within photography Sundari is researching and exploring the role of time and stillness within the form and content of photomedia.
Images © Sundari Carmody.
Installation shots of Divergence: Photographs from Elsewhere.
Photogrpahy © Matt Biocich
Benjamin Wyatt MLA
Shadow Minister for Education
Member for Victoria Park
"With this regional access to the Hub through its virtual services, the opportunities that digital media offers to Indigenous communities for increased participation and income streams can be maximised. Digital Media is an area of significant potential for these communities. As identified in the recently released Review of Austrolian Government Investment in the Indigenous Broadcasting and Media Sector; 'The Indigenous broadcasting and media sector has great potential to improve the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and to support the Australian Government's policy objectives in Indigenous affairs, in particular the Council of Australian Governments' (CGAG) Closing the Gap initiatives. However, while the sector has grown considerably over the past 25 years it is still under-developed and therefore cannot and is not currently meeting that potentiaL' The same report identified digital and new media technologies as areas of opportunity to realised and grow this potential.
Given that art continues to be a major contributor to the economic and social livelihoods of Indigenous communities, digital media offers new ways to express creativity, showcase stories, histories and cultural heritage, and to develop new audiences and markets. Art centres are seeing a strong increase in the use of digital media as a creative tool. The development of a Digital Media Hub that will work alongside a metropolitan based Aboriginal Creative Development Studio and a network of Aboriginal Art Centres in regional Australia will enable communities to maximise the opportunities presented by the crossover of Aboriginal Art and the rapid take up of digital/new media."
To view this letter of support, click here.
Neil Chowdhury (USA)
Lost and Found in Mumbai and Digital Photomontages
“For the past decade, my creative efforts in photography have centred on my interest in exploring my Indian heritage. Growing up in the United States fostered the cultivation of my imaginative fantasy about the land of my ancestry. My father died without telling me much about the culture in which he grew up, or the story of his early life there. Having now made several trips to India, I am creating work that documents my experiences building a relationship with the peoples and land of my ancestry.”
Neil Chowdhury received his MFA in photography at the University of Washington and now practices as an artist working in photography and digital media. He is an Assistant Professor and Director of the photography program at Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, New York and has also taught at Zayed University, Dubai; the College for Creative Studies, Detroit; and the University of Washington, Seattle. His photography and digital works have been exhibited widely across the US and internationally.
Images © Neil Chowdhury.
Hon Alyssa Hayden MLC
Member for the East Metropolitan Region
"Midland is a straegically important location in Western Australia, situated at the nexus of major transport links and forming a gateway to Regional Western Australia and beyond. just 17km from the Perth CBD, Midland forms part of the City of Swan and the East Metropolitan Region. The nationally significant infrastructure and associated industries in the region position it as a major contributor to the State and national economies."
To view this letter of support, click here.
Jagath Dheerasekara (Australia):
Manuwangku, Under the Nuclear Cloud
“Nomination of their traditional lands as a domestic nuclear waste dump site in 2007, coupled with proposals for Australia to ‘lease’ uranium and take back nuclear waste from overseas, have generated justifiable fear and concern among the Aboriginal communities in and around Muckaty (Manuwangku), 120 km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. Manuwangku, Under the Nuclear Cloud attempts to document the spirit, connection to land and collective voice of this community, as they protest in defence of their right to live in a clean environment, free from hazardous waste.”
Photography, a boyhood passion, took on a new meaning for Jagath Dheerasekara as a university student in Sri Lanka, when he began documenting the mass political killings of the late 1980s and early 1990s. A key member of Students for Human Rights, his resulting detention as a political prisoner led to exile, when France granted him political asylum. He returned to Sri Lanka following the regime change in the mid 1990s and settled in Australia in 2008, where his work now focuses on Aboriginal, refugee and environmental themes. He was an Amnesty International Human Rights Innovation Fund grant recipient in 2010 and a finalist in the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize in 2011, and exhibits his work internationally.
Images © Jagath Dheerasekara.
John Knell
Intelligence Agency
"Having undertaken a review of the cultural sector in Western Australia for the Department for Culture and the Arts, I have good understanding of the local creative ecology when judged from an international perspective. I write to support FORM's proposal to the Regional Development Australia Fund to develop a Digital Media Hub as part of the Midland Atelier. This is a much needed building block in the future development of the sector."
To view this letter of support online, click here
Catarina Diedrich (Spain):
Nameless
“In Nameless, identity turns out to be the lack of identity. Assumed identities define and overshadow the individual in society. Who are we really? How do we define ourselves? What does the mirror reflect?”
Catarina Diedrich was born in Spain in 1970. She studied economics at the University of Alicante and gained a degree in visual arts from the Miguel Hernández University of Elche. She has since exhibited her work across Europe including being selected to participate in the FOTONOVIEMBRE International Biennial of Photography 2011, in Tenerife, Spain and as a Finalist in the Domingos da Silva Teixeira Emergentes DST International Photography Award, 2011 in Braga, Portugal.
Images © Catarina Diedrich.
Chris Adams
General Manager
Pilbara Cities Office
"Given the evidence of need for greater services and improved access to arts and culture in our region generally, as well as in Indigenous art centres, digital media offers exciting potential. The level and diversity of social and cultural resources and infrastructure to date has been in decline. According to the Spotlight on the Pilbara (ABS and PDC), from 2001 to 2006 Arts and Recreation services in the Pilbara have reduced, from employment figures of 122 to 77. Apart from the mining and construction sectors, most other industry sectors have either reduced or stayed at similar levels in size, despite economic and population growth in the region. Other innovative means of enabling access is needed, and the growth industry of digital media offers important."
To view this letter of support online, click here.
Eva Fernandez (Australia):
(terra) australis incognita
“Acting as a critique of the violent destruction of societies by external influences, and paralleling the practices of colonisation, these forensic-like images eerily resemble sites of violence. Some of the objects have been dismantled and partly reconstructed; the flaws become apparent to serve as a critique of the process of decolonisation/reconciliation and create a tension between order and disorder. Drawing upon ideologies of hybridity in culture and nature, these strange manifestations at times metamorphasise into highly aesthetic objects, while at others become dark and menacing.”
Eva Fernandez completed a Master of Arts (Creative Arts) at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, in 2002. She has been a practicing artist for over two decades, currently working in photography and digital based media, in addition to academic and curatorial work. Eva has held four solo exhibitions and been invited to exhibit in several group shows nationally, including Girls on Film and Mix Tape, both at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and Transient States at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Victoria. She recently curated me-take: Indigenous self-representation in Photomedia which toured Western Australia from 2012-2011. Eva’s art practice seeks to contextualise her existence in the place/space she inhabits, including exploration of her physical environment, as well as cultural and gender identity. She is currently examining the deconstruction and reconstruction of symbolically-laden objects to subtly critique the time in which they were created, and has recently begun developing a publication of narratives and photographic artworks inspired by family recipes from the Spanish Civil War.
Images © Eva Fernandez.
Nicole Lockwood
Shire President
Shire of Roebourne
"Digital media, as well as being an important industry in its own right, adds substantial value to productivity, skills and knowledge exchange, IP generation and maximising output across other industries.
This value-add is vital in a region that is characterised by impending skills shortages, and a single dominant industry which makes such economic diversification imperative. As a high value-add industry sector, digital media represents an important area of opportunity for diversification. The employment growth for the information media and telecommunications industry in this State is expected to exceed the national employment growth in this field, making it a growth opportunity."
To view this letter of support, click here.
Andrew George (USA):
Unfiltered
“When shooting these women, I tried to capture something universal, yet elusive, that ordinarily escapes a lot of popular portraiture. I avoided any artifice and pose, and observed that by discarding traditional expectations of femininity, my subjects conveyed a powerful, distilled authenticity. A certain reductive truth emerged from the shadows. My camera was part x-ray, part stethoscope and I glimpsed a sublime moment in the lives of these individual souls."
Andrew George was born in Los Angeles, California in 1970. He graduated from Bard College in 1994 and received his MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1997. His work has recently been exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, Fort Collins and San Francisco and featured in Le Lettre de la Photographie, The San Francisco Chronicle and Art Ltd. George has held six solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows. His work is held in more than eighty five public and private collections.
Images © Andrew George.
·
Shelley Pike
Chief Executive officer
Pilbara Regional Council
"Although located in Midland, the Digital Media Hub with its model of extended reach will enable local workers and residents in the Pilbara to access world-class digital media knowledge resources, facilities, services, programs, support and a globally connected network of practitioners that will deliver learning outcomes, increased employment and business growth. It will also aid in the retention of talent, skills and knowledge within the Pilbara, by providing alternative networks to counter the challenges of distance.
As well as being an important industry in its own right, digital media also adds substantial value to productivity, IP generation and maximising output across other industries. This value-add is vital in a State that is characterised by impending skills shortages, and a single dominant industry which makes economic diversification imperative."
To view this letter of support, click here.
Ed Janes (Australia):
South Fremantle Power Station
“I first visited South Fremantle Power Station in May 2009 and was at once captivated by the building. I saw a rare nobility and many of the qualities of the gothic cathedrals. I love the location, the scale, the extraordinary variations of lights, the vast range of textures (always more pronounced and captivating for me as a building decays), the vivid colours and vibrancy of the sometimes excellent graffiti and the many and varied meetings with other visitors...I have tried to simply show the building through the eyes of a designer and maker of things. It has been hugely rewarding and made so by the original engineers who designed and built it, those who continually decorate its walls and the elements that have weathered and will eventually reclaim it.”
Born in the United Kingdom in 1944, Ed Janes graduated from the Oxford School of Architecture and has worked as an architect, designer, builder and academic in London and Perth, as well as sitting on the Craft Council of Western Australia. He has continually sought to incorporate photography into his professional practice, and his academic positions at the Western Australian Institute of Technology and the University of Western Australia involved developing and teaching specialised applications of architectural photography. In 1976 he established the Fremantle Furniture Factory and in 1983 he founded (and until the present day has managed) In Perspective, practicing as an architect of interiors and Curtininfurn, practicing as a designer and manufacturer of furniture.
Images © Edwin Janes.
Mike Foley
Chief Executive Officer
City of Swan
"The establishment of a Digital Media Hub in Midland that will offer both physical and virtual services to digital media practitioners, but also a wide range of industries is unique. It will directly assist the City of Swan in increasing the knowledge intensive jobs in the region that will be required to support our growing economy."
To view this letter of support, click here.
Rhea Karam (Lebanon/USA):
Breathing Walls
“By definition, walls are barriers. They can also act as windows to the conflicts engulfing their surroundings. They are storytellers – absorbing and reflecting their surroundings – and becoming silent witnesses to our lives and battles. As a photographer I felt the necessity to document the ephemeral testimonies of life as a record of an important period in Lebanon’s modern history. My hope is that these images evoke emotions in my viewers, and speak to them about the importance of observing their surroundings with a critical eye. In Lebanon, to find beauty in a cracked wall is to understand history; to see beauty in a graffiti wall is to understand the power of self-expression; and to see beauty in a wall that tells a tale is to understand the power of the brushstroke. I hope this series of images will one day stand as an archive illuminating a story of progress.”
Lebanon-born Rhea Karam is a freelance photographer based in New York. She shoots still life and interiors on commission, while her solo practice questions social behaviour through the documentation of domestic and urban landscapes. She attended the International Centre of Photography in 2007, where she received a director’s scholarship and her work has been included in several juried group exhibitions across the United States, Europe and the Middle East. In 2011 she attended the Review Santa Fe and held her first solo exhibition at the Third Line Gallery in Dubai.
Images © Rhea Karam.
Alan Lindsay
Managing Director - Founding Partner
VUE Group
"As someone who has worked tirelessly to harness the opportunity of digital and new media for Western Australia through my work to establish Vue Group as a campus for digital content innovation and through the co-development of Australian Centre for Digital lnnovation in Bunbury, I see the enormous opportunity this sector offers WA and I am committed to pursuing that potential.
Western Australia's development and economy is so focused on the resources industry it is refreshing to see a vibrant, proactive, provocateur organisation like FORM taking up the baton for a digital content industrial, educational and afts hub. FORM has done its homework, and has management withe the foresight to make a true contribution to the growth of the state across creative industries disciplines."
To view this letter of support, click here.
Jan Shuenke (Germany):
I am sitting in a room different to the one you are sitting in now
“I am sitting in a room different to the one you are sitting in now is a series of photographs taken from hotel rooms around the world. Showing the view outside the safety and comfort of the room, these images depict a fast-changing society of rearranging landscapes. Some of the photographs are supported by quotes from poets like Botho Strau?, ‘There is this deep longing for rashness which leads back to the early manifestos of modernism: To sort out the old and break with it, to build new cities, to create a new mankind and its structure – from soul to car tyre. The great common desire to build and form, the aesthetic passion for expansive renewal, although all of this will end in a ridiculous, even deathly way...’”
Jan Schuenke was born in Starnberg, Germany in 1978. He undertook a photographic apprenticeship in Munich from 1996-1999 and internships with Melle Pufe Whs and FILMHAUS in Berlin from 2000-2002. He has subsequently worked in a freelance capacity for numerous magazines and assisted several international photographers and studios, Armin Brosch, Poby and Markus Pritzi, and was First Assistant to Hubertus Hamm from 2006-2008. Since 2009 he has worked in a freelance capacity for clients including BMW, Mandarin Oriental, Meissen Porcelain, Munk, OMV, Zum Tobel, AD, Park Avenue, Baumeister and SZ-Magazin. He has received an honourable mention in the International Photography Awards in four categories and participated in exhibitions in Germany.
Images © Jan Shuenke.
Natasha Shulte (Ukraine):
Line
"Line comprises pairs of photographs that investigate the lives of children abandoned by their parents. Each work combines two similar portraits of a child from the orphanage in Belgorod-Dnestrovky: in one, the child is dressed in their usual orphanage clothes, in the second, the image of cleanliness and innocence has been formed. Combined with the precise classical composition, the portraits become symbolically loaded statements of youth, of lost dreams and illusions. The work questions whether there is any reality for those who, since their childhood, have not had the most valuable thing in life: homes and families."
Natasha Shulte studied at the Photography School, Paris and has since exhibited her work internationally, winning numerous prizes and awards. In 2011 she was nominated for the Pinchuk Art Centre Prize, awarded biannually to the Ukraine’s leading contemporary artists, was named Editorial Photographer of the Year in the International Photography Awards and won first place for outstanding achievement in the Photography Masters Cup. She participated in the PX3 2011 Prix de la Photographie Paris, winning gold, silver and bronze in several categories.
Images © Natasha Shulte.
Flavia Schuster (Argentina):
Servicio de Admisión
“Since July 2010 I have been coordinating a photographic workshop at J.T. Borda, Buenos Aires’ 147-year old psychiatric hospital for men. The mad ones are deposited into the hospital's Admissions Ward and they are forgotten by their families and society, more often than not, until they die. Inside a shabby shed in the hospital gardens I set up a studio where I would invite the mad ones to come in, hidden from doctors, nurses and security guards, to be photographed. I asked the men to sit down and literally look at themselves in a see-through-mirror I glued to my camera lens. Mirrors used to be removed from psychiatric patients and, when confronted with their own image after years of medication and social isolation, their reactions varied from denial, awe, curiosity and rejection. Servicio de Admisión presents forgotten psychotic men looking at themselves.”
Flavia Schuster undertook a Bachelor of Communications with Honours, majoring in Photomedia at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia and is currently based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work is represented in private and public collections in Argentina, Australia Spain and the United States, including the State Art Collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
Images © Flavia Schuster.
Munish Khanna (India):
I CAME ACROSS – body & Soul
“As I travelled through my journey as a photographer, on several turns I came across unknown people who triggered in me an impulse to release the shutter, capturing a page out of their lives. We would probably never come across each other again but the fact remains that one candid moment out of their lives has been a part of my photography collection.”
Munish Khanna graduated from the Government College of Art, Chandigarh and undertook digital photographic training in New York. His work appears regularly in nearly all leading Indian photographic journals as well as many international publications, and he has undertaken assignments in the fields of fashion, advertising, interior design, jewellery design, fashion and contemporary art. He has exhibited his work in the United Kingdom and India, including participating as one of two hundred leading Indian photographers in The Incredible Moment, India’s largest ever collection of photographs in New Delhi in 2005. He teaches photography st his academy in New Delhi to students from all over the globe.
Images © Munish Khanna.
Andrej Kocis & Maurizio Salvati (Australia):
Unmasked
“Unmasked comprises two photographic series, 30" and Liar, Liar. The series, 30" (Thirty Seconds), is inspired by the first photographic portraits of the 19th century. The intense look in the subjects' eyes is more a reflection of the physical effort to maintain the pose than their true character. 30" tries to recapture this deep and extended moment between the sitter and the camera's lens. The prolonged stare transforms the lens' glass into a mirror in which the photographic gaze is the subject's own. Liar, Liar is an experimental photographic project. It involves portraits of subjects in the act of telling a lie about themselves. Each photograph is taken at the moment the subject is contemplating his or her lie, revealing the subject's facial expressions or gestures. The photographs capture moments of spontaneity, in which each subject reveals unwittingly something about him or herself. The project seeks to unmask a truth that sometimes lurks within a lie.”
Andrej Kocis is a photo-imaging artist. He draws inspiration from people, places and subcultures, and uses photography as a means to convey their stories. From his background as a lawyer, Andrej brings an inquiring approach to his narratives - delving deep into thoughts and souls. Yet, his work always provokes emotional responses. Andrej's recent exhibitions include Flatscapes (a series of abstract works exploring the movement and flow of sea-water, evoking serenity and perpetual activity simultaneously) and Liar, Liar (an experimental project involving portraits of subjects in the act of telling a lie about themselves, unmasking truths that sometimes lurk within lies). Andrej works as a lawyer, but crosses into art and image-making in search of narrative and meaning.
Maurizio Salvati was born in Rome in 1960 and moved to Australia in 1991, where is currently a lecturer in Photo-imaging at the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE. He received a Bachelor of Visual Art in 2005 and has subsequently begun a Masters and completed a Diploma in Education. He has shown his work across Australia and internationally, including the recent exhibitions Interference – New Terrain at Ararat Regional Art Gallery (2008), Taxi in the Federation Square Atrium, Melbourne (2010) and 30” – Exposing Time as part of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale (2011). In 2010 he was a shortlisted finalist in the Lens Based Art Show at Osservatorio Gualino in Turin, Italy. Publications on his work have included Lucky Land, Blurb Publishing, USA, (2010) and ExposingTime (with Andrej Kocis), Blurb Publishing, USA, (2010).
Top image © Maurizio Salvati.
Bottom image © Andrej Kocis.
Denis Glennon AO (Australia)
“My photography is not a portrayal of environmental vandalism or an elegy to vanishing places. Other ardent photographers cover these aspects very well. Rather, my focus is on the use of photography to encourage the preservation of what is, whilst understanding the attendant challenges and constant tensions between development and nature conservation. When I photograph wild creatures, I see them in my viewfinder as ambassadors for the preservation of their frequently diminishing habitat. My images seek to be beacons to a stronger connectedness with our natural world and to inspire a more respectful interaction with our environment.”
Denis Glennon AO is a self-taught wildlife and nature photographer. For many years his passions have been the wide open spaces of ocean sailing, and the conservation of nature. Having spent seven years in Africa and thirty plus years in the corporate world, he now combines his affections for travel, wildlife and nature preservation with conservation photography in far-flung places that include Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Botswana, Chile, China, Kenya, Namibia, Patagonia, South Africa, and Zambia. His articles and images have been published in Australia and overseas, and he has been a finalist in the ANZANG and the BBC/British Museum Wildlife competitions and won the "Wilderness" category in ANZANG 2010. In 2000 he was awarded an Order of Australia (AO), in recognition of his contribution to environmental protection, and to the Australian community.
Images © Denis Glennon AO.
Natalie Grono (Australia):
SEA DREAMING
“Life is thought to have begun in the ocean and as a coastal inhabitant I feel I am constantly beckoned by the tidal pulling of the ocean. As a coastal child, the beach is an endless playground at the mercy of the elements, where storm fronts pass overhead, birds circle and the ocean crashes. It is here that children not only creatively play but build a relationship with the natural world finding moments of awe and stillness.”
Natalie Grono is a photographic storyteller focusing on daily life. She studied photography at Newcastle University, and with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications, began her photographic career in newspapers. Her work is regularly exhibited and published, including showcasing in Australian exhibitions and prizes such as the Moran Contemporary photographic prize, the Centre for Contemporary Photography Documentary Award, the William and Winifred Bowness Prize, Head On portrait prize, Olive Cotton Award, Sony projections and Reportage festival of photojournalism. In 2010 she was named Australia’s top emerging photographer by Capture Magazine and in 2009 she won the Walkley Award for portraiture.
Images © Natalie Grono.
Alan Hill & Kelly Hussey-Smith (Australia):
Hull
“In an official 2004 survey, Hull was voted ‘Most Crap Town’ in the United Kingdom. In contrast, Hull has been the home of many famous poets and was described as Australian poet Peter Porter as the most poetic city in England. This ongoing series examines the relationship between these characterisations.”
Alan Hill is a documentary practitioner and Associate Lecturer at Griffith University. He is a former editor of the Australian PhotoJournalist and has an ongoing involvement with Griffith’s Centre for Documentary Practice. His work has been exhibited nationally and explores the spaces we create, occupy and interact with in our everyday lives, using them as the basis of his examination of human behavior.
Kelly Hussey-Smith is a Documentary Practitioner mainly working in photography and more recently in video and multimedia. She lives and works in Brisbane, Australia. Kelly is currently completing postgraduate study at the Queensland College of Art where she also teaches photography, and is working on a long-term project investigating the unseen products of industry. She regularly exhibits her work in Australia and has also exhibited in China, Bangladesh, and the UK. Kelly has worked voluntarily as an editor for the Australian PhotoJournalist, Centre for Documentary Practice, and as a documentist for Operation Smile with whom she has travelled to document medical missions in Australia and abroad.
Images © Alan Hill & Kelly Hussey-Smit
David Manley (Australia):
Background Noise
“My art practice attempts to explore the imprint and residue of our individual and collective identity within architectural spaces and urban environments. The modern urban culture of tabular rasa and the pursuit of increasing material wealth situate us within a milieu of false optimism and utopian ideals. Every action in obtaining these goals results in failure, which in turn perpetuates our need to repeat the action. Between walls the human condition is played out in all its complexity and fragility, sometimes anything but perfect. As an artist I am interested in defining these aspects of human experience through images of the buildings and spaces we create and imbue with the entropic traces of our lives.”
David Manley was born and lives in Sydney, Australia. He studied at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, majoring in Photomedia and graduating with honours in 2011. He has participated in several group exhibitions and awards across Australia, receiving a special mention for his work in the Bowness Photography Prize in 2011 and being awarded the Giclee Airport North Gallery Award and Artist Profile Magazine Award in 2012. He was commissioned by St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney to develop a photographic archive of Darlinghurst’s Caritas Psychiatric Hospital, prior to its decommission in 2010, the results of which are now part of the hospital’s permanent collection. He was one of sixteen Australian artists selected for participation in Hijacked 3, Australia UK, for publication in 2012.
Images © David Manley.
Prudence Murphy (Australia):
Boys With Guns
Prudence Murphy is an Australian artist based in Sydney. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts with First Class Honours in 1999 and a Masters of Fine Arts (Research) in 2002, at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. She has exhibited across Australia, including numerous solo exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney. She was shortlisted for the Art and Australia Contemporary Art Award in 2007, and was a finalist in the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize and the Olive Cotton Award in 2011.She currently lectures in Photomedia at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales and in Photography and Situated Media at the University of Technology, Sydney.
“For some time now I have been interested in chance moments of play and fleeting moments in a child’s development. In play we shape the world, and children from an early age develop the impulse to play with weapons. These images were shot in Rhyl, North Wales, and urban and bush settings around New South Wales, Australia: I chose the locations, cast local boys and allowed them to improvise their own games. I then followed them for several hours watching their play unfold. The resulting photographs are simply an attempt to depict something of the mystery of children’s imaginings, which may perhaps resonate with and elucidate our adult experience.”
Images © Prudence Murphy.
Matthew Newton (Australia):
Moonbird Boy
“In the 1970s, Indigenous Tasmanian poet Errol West wrote the poem Moon Birds of Big Dog Island:
Like dust blown across the plain are the people of the Moon Bird.
And yet there is no one to teach me the songs
That bring the Moon bird, the fish
Or any other thing that makes me what I am.
Mutton birds, also known as moonbirds, have been harvested by the Tasmanian Aboriginal people for hundreds of years. It is a time for the Aboriginal community to come together and connect with country. This series shows young Shay Maynard ‘birding’ on Big Dog Island in Bass Straight, Tasmania.”
Matthew Newton is an independent photographer based in Hobart, Tasmania who works with both moving and still images. He has shot documentaries that have been broadcast nationally, and regularly photographs for editorial and news publications throughout Australia. He has been selected as a finalist for numerous awards and prizes including the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize in 2010 and 2011, the Head On Portrait Prize in 2008, 2010 and 2011, and the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize in 2010. He won the City of Davenport Art Award in 2010.
Images © Matthew Newton.
Sarah Rhodes (Australia):
Home / On Country
“Home / On Country is a series of diptychs looking at how Indigenous Australians negotiate living in and identifying with two cultures. The formal portraits show Victorian Elders at home and on Country wearing their language group’s possum skin cloak, the same cloak they made to wear to the opening ceremony of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. These images acknowledge the opening ceremony as a significant moment in the history of Aboriginal people, and celebrate the thirty six Victorian language groups who came together to show the world their culture. It also celebrates the last two original cloaks in Australian collections (in Museum Victoria), and the beginning of a revival of possum skin cloak making across the south-eastern states of Australia. Possum skin cloaks are an important part of Australia’s story and culture and these portraits give the Elders a voice.”
Sarah Rhodes is an art and social documentary photographer based in Sydney and Tasmania, who runs the multimedia studio The Visual Anthropologist. Sarah’s romantic fascination with ‘the artist’s life’ inspired the coffee table book The Artist’s Lunch (Murdoch Books, 2008) which offers a rare glimpse into the kitchens and studios of eighteen of Australia’s most celebrated artists. Portraits from this project were exhibited at the Iain Dawson Gallery, Paddington (2008), the Sydney Writers’ Festival (2009) and Head On Photo Festival (2010). An image from her series Play (2008-2012) was awarded Best Work at the New York Festival Photo Award in 2011 and was a finalist in the National Photographics Portrait Prize 2011 in Canberra. Her series of diptychs, Home / On Country (2011), has been collected by the National Library of Australia and the Koorie Heritage Trust, Melbourne and will be published in the Australian Geographic Society journal later this year. Her works is also held in the Margaret Hannah Olley Trust and Charles Blackman Trust.
Images © Sarah Rhodes.
Marc Shoul (South Africa):
Flatlands
“I can remember always having a camera with me as a kid when on holiday, shooting friends and occasions. Photography is medium-conveying information, which I am able to use to expose, communicate, engage, understand and learn from the people and situations I seek out. I work mostly in black and white primarily because it relies on mood and composition. I am drawn to different societies, hoping to understand the way people live and adapt to their circumstance, environments and limitations. I am fascinated by peoples’ development in difficult situations and seek to find out what makes them propel themselves and sustain what they have.”
Marc Shoul was born in 1975 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He graduated with Honours in photography from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 1999 and currently lives and works in Johannesburg. He has participated in group exhibitions across South Africa and Europe; was featured in the AGFA Youth International Photojournalism Publication 1999; reached the finals of the Absa L’Atelier 2009; was included in After A at the Report Atri Festival, Italy; and was invited to hold a workshop at the Vevey School of Photography, in 2010. His solo exhibitions have included Beyond Walmer at the Association of Visual Arts Gallery in Cape Town (2000), Natal Society of Arts, Durban (2001) and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth (2010), and Flatlands, at the Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town (2009), KZNSA in Durban, (2010) and Galerie Quai 1, Vevey, Switzerland (2010). He has worked for magazines including Colors, Dazed & Confused, De Spiegel, Financial Times Magazine, Monocle, Mother Jones, Smithsonian, Stern, The Telegraph Magazine, Time, Wired and World Health Organization and has shot for many advertising clients and agencies. In 2007 the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum added Beyond Walmer to its permanent collection.
Images © Marc Shoul.
Lia Steele (Australia):
Eden
"Eden consists of a series of portraits taken throughout Australia. The series originates from an obsessive curiosity into the transitory stage of youth and a human relationship with nature. By referencing the biblical Garden of Eden, and by placing young people in Edenic backgrounds, I am depicting youth as a time of purity and innocence, an unspoiled paradise. The images are taken with a protective tenderness and present themselves as an almost personal insight into the subject, however the composition of the photographs and the subjects’ lack of expression, leave the viewer to observe curiously from the outside looking in, and to lament upon the sanctity of human life."
Lia Steele is an artist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her photographic practice explores themes of youth, aging, beauty, death and the ideal, the documentation of life and the search for paradise on earth. Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Photography, from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, where she majored in documentary, and an honours degree in Fine Art from the Victorian College of the Arts. Her work has been widely exhibited across Australia and her book, Eden is in international collections.
Images © Lia Steele.
Michael Stone (Australia):
The Bottom of Old Smokey
“Manila’s infamous Smokey Mountain is a disgusting mountain of putrid rubbish where people scavenge to make a living and, until recently, dwelt in shanty houses. Through a great deal of publicity and only after a rubbish landslide that killed between 200 and 300 people, most of the residents have been moved into shabby apartment blocks. But still at the base of the mountain are the ‘Charcoal Kids of Patayas’. Earning a dollar a day, they sift through and bag up the charcoal created from waste wood, constantly breathing in smoke. Prior to my visit I was told how dangerous it was by several people, and that I should hide my watch. Instead, I discovered that these people are among the nicest you could ever hope to meet. I hope that these photos will help their plight and that I can visit my friend again in better conditions.”
Mike Stone undertook a short photography course in 1975 and from then on was hooked on photography. He was one of the main photographic contributors to the pop cultural magazine Revelation, launched in Perth, Western Australia, during the 1990s and was a founding member of the Western Australian Photography Gallery. In 1995 he completed a media degree and postgraduate media degree at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. His work has recently been published in South East Asian Geo and The Manila Times, and has been shown on ABC Television, Australia. He is the founder and owner of the Australian Photography Forum www.photoforum.com.au.
Images © Michael Stone.
Gemma-Rose Turnbull (Australia):
Red Light Dark Room; Sex, lives and stereotypes
“A year ago I joined St. Kilda Gatehouse (a support centre for St. Kilda’s drug users and street sex workers that is run on donor support), as artist in residence. I began photographing the street workers, then gave the women their own cameras and worked with them to tell their stories. The result is a collection of insightful interviews, observations and photographs, that seek to open the shutters on their day to day lives. These were collated into a book: Red Light Dark Room; Sex Lives & Stereotypes, which is being sold to raise money for the Gatehouse. I have ended up with a project that does not shy away from sharing strong and sometimes painful stories. My greatest wish is that the project helps to humanise these women.”
Gemma-Rose Turnbull graduated from the Queensland College of Art with First Class Honours in Documentary Photography, working as a photojournalist following her graduation. She was named News Photographer of the Year 2007 and received the Mary Clerc Scholarship for Exceptional Talent in Photojournalism to attend the Missouri Photojournalism Workshop in the United States. She spent three years on the editorial board of Australian Photojournalist and was Editor of the magazine’s 11th edition, Celebrating Journalism. For the last five years she has worked for the IndoChina Media Memorial Foundation running photography workshops for Vietnamese photojournalists. In 2009 she was nominated for a Griffith University Award for Excellence in early career teaching.
Images © Gemma-Rose Turnbull.
Salih Urek (Turkey):
Whispers of the Doubtful Man
“Human beings are the only creatures who are capable of representing reality and thereby rendering it visible and distinguishable. Without such a capacity, the being of things in this world would be an undifferentiated formless mass, without any determining features. Consequently, the contingent emergence of the world as our world is only possible through our representation of it. However, things that appear in the world of photography claim their own existence and somewhat replace our ability to create illusions, to imagine and design by their sheer facticity projected through devices of light.”
Salih Urek was born in Izmit, Turkey in 1987. He studied Mechanical Engineering at Yildiz Technical University, becoming interested in photography during his first year of university and initiating student photography workshops throughout his degree. He held his first solo exhibition, Whispers of the Doubtful Man at Yildiz Technical University in 2011.
Images © Salih Urek.
Elizabeth Wintle (UK):
STREETS OF NEW YORK
“Living and studying for a year in New York gave me an insight into the city that I could never have contemplated as a tourist. During this time I fell in love with street photography and spent many hours photographing the diverse ethnic, socioeconomic and gender groups. There are many street parades throughout the year on the streets of New York and the participants are colourful, vibrant and diverse, showing off their amazing and colourful costumes. However, I found in everyday life that many people also displayed clothes that revealed their personality, even though they may not have been consciously aware of their choices, which were just as colourful and interesting.”
Elizabeth Wintle completed a Photography Degree in 2007 in Exeter, England and studied photojournalism and documentary photography in New York. While at university she was offered the opportunity to take part in a student exchange program and spent three months in Sapporo, Japan. She has subsequently taken photographs throughout England, in India, the US and Australia, where she photographed the world’s first set of IVF quads for a long-term project focused on twin, triplets and quads.
Images © Elizabeth Wintle.
Josh Wodak (Australia):
the idea of [(n)t+f(n)(q)]
“the idea of [(n)t+f(n)(q)] is a suite of photographs of intertidal zones of lakes, wetlands, beach-fronting rainforest and oceans in the Northern Territory and Far North Queensland. The suite collectively concerns metapatterns, structures and forms within nature-at-large, as revealed by the microcosmic details within each photograph, and the macrocosmic themes emerging from the relationships revealed in the photographs' sequencing. The locations of the photographs forms an acronym and mathematical equation, referring to The North as physical place and metaphor for solitude: [(n)orthern territory + far (n)orth (q)ueensland]. Each photograph’s title includes a number sequence of data going from place into time: the latitude and longitude of where the photo was taken followed by focal length, aperture, shutter speed, time and date. This depicts the exact location of each photograph, then travels into the camera lens, and then into time. Production involving no tripod, cropping, editing, tilting or image manipulation was for matching minimal intervention on the purely natural subjects depicted with minimal post-production.”
Dr Josh Wodak is a photographic artist who holds a PhD in Media Arts from the Australian National University and was a 2011 Artist in Residence in Photography and Media Arts at ANU School of Art. His photographic practice is in reportage, documentary, and street photography, drawing on his formal training in Visual Anthropology and Media Arts. His solo photography exhibitions since 2000 include human ecology in India; human rights in Western Europe; natural environments in remote Australia; candid environmental portraiture in Spain and climate change induced sea level rise in Oceania. His series, the idea of [(n)t+f(n)(q)] has been exhibited as a solo exhibition at the Photospace Gallery, Australian National University School of Art in 2009, as part of the 2009 BeginningMiddleEnd festival at ANU School of Art. In 2012 he will be holding six solo photography exhibitions in Canberra, Perth and Sydney.
Images © Josh Wodak.
Art Wolfe (USA)
“I have a very strong drive to leave the world a better place than when I entered it. In other words, I like to contribute to a greater society and teaching is noble. If I can pass on a bit of the wisdom and knowledge I’ve accrued over the years, pass on that love of the environment, it makes me feel good. I don’t have children, so my legacy is the work that I have created and the people who I have touched.”
Over the course of his thirty-year career, Art Wolfe has taken an estimated one million images, working from hundreds of locations spread across every continent. His photographs interpret and record the world’s fast-disappearing wildlife, landscapes and native cultures, and are an inspiration to those who seek to preserve them all. Wolfe graduated from the University of Washington with Bachelor degrees in fine arts and art education and was subsequently named in their Alumni Association’s list of 100 “most famous, fascinating and influential” alumni of the 20th century. Magazines all over the world publish his photographs and stories, his work is licensed for monograph retail products as well as advertising and numerous North American and international venues have featured his travelling exhibits. Wolfe has released over sixty-five books, including his signature work The Living Wild, which has sold more than 70,000 copies in print worldwide and garnered awards from the National Outdoor Book Awards, Independent Publisher, Applied Arts and Graphis. He is a recipient of the Photographic Society of America’s Progress Medal for his contribution to the advancement of the art and science of photography; he has been awarded with a coveted Alfred Eisenstaedt Magazine Photography Award as well as named Outstanding Nature Photographer of the Year by the North American Nature Photography Association. The National Audubon Society recognised his work in support of the national wildlife refuge system with its first-ever Rachel Carson Award. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, a Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers and serves on the advisory boards for the Nature’s Best Foundation and Bridges to Understanding.
(text adapted from an article and interview by Denis Glennon AO)
Art Wolfe in Australia in 2012
Iconic Images International will be bringing Art Wolfe to Australia in March 2012 to run a series of public lectures and workshops in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Details of these events may be found at www.denisglennon.com
Art will also be available to conduct exclusive “One-on-One with Art Wolfe” private sessions. The focus here is for a small number of like-minded photographers to spend a whole day with Art in a private learning environment. The maximum number in these groups will be three – a rare opportunity. Anyone interested should contact Denis Glennon at either
denis@denisglennon.comm or on 0418 923 103.
Images © Art Wolfe.
Images of Divergence: The Photographers' Cut (the FotoFreo Open Exhibition Program, 2012), courtesy of FORM.
