This week on Friday Round Up - Generation '74 at Arles, Eastern Europe under the Lens at ACP, the launch of Maggie Diaz Photography Prize for Women and #Dysturb holds workshop in Sydney.
Photos of the Week:
Child Labour 1908 and 2015
Lewis Hine 1908
Reuters 2015
Exhibition: Sydney
Ex & Post - Eastern Europe Under the Lens
Group Show
Andrej Balco, Pezinok from the series Suburbs 2005-2006
Curated by Sári Stenczer and Krisztina Erdei this group exhibition features works from Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Georgia, Germany and Slovakia. The exhibition explores the aftermath of the collapse of socialist systems in Eastern Europe, the impact on individuals and communities and how those nations are seeking to define cultural identity.
Rafal Milach, Baranovichi Sasha, the best welder of the Republic of Belarus
Until 16 August
Australian Centre for Photography
257 Oxford Street
Paddington
Book:
Generation ‘74
I really love everything about this book – the concept, the photographs, the text, the production. I saw Generation ’74 when I was at the Auckland Festival of Photography in May and soon it will be on my shelf, after making the journey to Australia all the way from Lithuania.
Generation ’74 features 11 photographers born in 1974. But it’s so much more than a collection of images from a bunch of 40 year olds. Each chapter features a single photographer and begins with a photograph from their childhood followed by 10-12 pages of their work. At the end of the book there is an insightful Q&A also.
Here’s an excerpt from the book’s introduction by one of the photographers and the book’s publisher, Mindaugas Kavaliauskas who is also the director of KAUNAS PHOTO festival.
What do these 11 photographers have in common apart from the year they were born in? Well, quite a lot actually. Today, every one of them is well known in their respective countries and beyond. Some are globally renowned and celebrated figures of photography, but before they became what they are now, they too experienced some historical milestones. They were turning 15 in the year when the Berlin wall came down; the guys from the ‘Eastern Bloc’ were between 16 and 18 years old when their countries regained their independences; and they experienced the expansion of the European Union in 2004 when they were in their thirties. “Generation ‘74” accommodated the Internet and digital photography at a mature age, without having discarded the fundamental ideas about life and photography. They all have created long-term projects based on the notion that the world has been transitioning from analogically unique to uniformly global. Their attitude towards taking pictures is imprinted by a sense of civic, social, and individual duty to make honest statements about their countries of origin, residence and those they visit on project trips. Their photographic works do not pretend to be fashionable, flashy, and are by no means superficial or glossy. Instead, they are humane, thoughtful, bitter, ironic, humorous, critical, and they are resonating with what people feel deep down, rather than say out loud.
Photographers in Generation ‘74: Simon Roberts (UK), Nick Hannes (Belgium), Kirill Golovchenko (Ukraine/Germany), Przemyslaw Pokrycki (Poland), Tomáš Pospěch (Czech Republic), Mindaugas Kavaliauskas (Lithuania), Vitus Saloshanka (Belarus/Germany), Gintaras Česonis (Lithuania), Borut Peterlin (Slovenia), Pekka Niittyvirta (Finland), Davide Monteleone (Italy).
To find out more or to order Generation ’74 click here
If you're in Arles at the moment, you can get your copy at Cosmos Books.
New Prize:
Maggie Diaz Photography Prize for Women
$5000 Photography Prize
$1000 People’s Choice Award
Migrants working on railway 1960s
This newly instituted prize celebrates Maggie Diaz, an American photographer who arrived in Melbourne in 1961 with a one-way ticket, five dollars in her pocket and more chutzpah than the photographic community had seen. Undeterred by the male dominated industry, she successfully established herself as a commercial photographer and went on to shoot for some of the major advertising agencies.
But her passion was photographing Melbourne’s artists, actors and those she came across on the street. Often she’d roam the city after dark with her Rollie capturing a visage of Melbourne that few saw. Her signature is found in the use of available light and her ability to find that evocative moment in everyday happenings.
Beach Boys
Radio 3AW mobile studio 1960s
Maggie is now 90, and it is only in the past decade that her vast oeuvre has come to light through the work of her long-time friend and her curator, Gwen de Lacy. I was fortunate to interview Maggie a few years back and it was a privilege to hear her stories. She’s a sassy dame, a straight shooter and we had a lot of laughs.
The Maggie Diaz Photography Prize for Women, which is sponsored by Guilty Films, is designed to encourage female photographers to keep pursuing their passion. The winner will be announced on 3 September at Brightspace Gallery in St. Kilda when the Maggie Diaz Projects exhibition opens. Judges for the inaugural prize are Naomi Cass, Director Centre for Contemporary Photography, noted photographer Ponch Hawkes and Ballarat International Foto Biennale Director Jeff Moorfoot.
To find out more about the prize click here
Workshop:
#Dysturb at ACP
Benjamin Petit © 2014#Dysturb continues its association with the Australian Centre for Photography (ACP) after taking over its Instagram feed recently. On Saturday 18th July photographers Madelena Rehorek and Tamara Voninsky will run a one day workshop at ACP focusing on reportage skills and social engagement. Visit ACP for more information on its Photocise program and details on how to register for #Dysturb's workshop.
