OUT OF THE BOX -Long Live the Archive

To 'unpack' photographs and proof sheets from a lifetime of projects, exhibitions and personal histories as a photographer.

This will be a work in process. Throughout the exhibition photos and proofs will move/grow from the boxes to the walls.

The different archives will be articulated and will clarify a resting place for them to be gifted to, within appropriate institutions.

A major objective of this 'research' exhibition is to endeavour to match different projects to appropriate institutions to gift, place or sell the work so it has a presence for future generations. I want to understand the nature of Deductable Gift Status (DGS) and make wise and informed choices for the placement of my work before I die. I not only want to 'entomb' the work in an archive but rather want to bring alive the personal photography stories which are a rich documentation of a very rich historic period.

A major schism that will manifest is that of my commissioned documentary photography (eg. The After 200 Years Bicentennial Project in which I was sent to Brewarrina to document key indigenous leaders on that community - Brewarrina is two thirds indigenous / one third white) and my personal photography in which I photographed close friends and associated colleagues (my peer group). This work is made up of multiple interwoven narratives which cover both my black and white (and to a less degree colour) analogue photography and the transition to digital primarily colour photography. This is a major archive of another nature to the commissioned projects.

This process will be visible to the visiting audience throughout the exhibition period and a public revelation will be celebrated on the last day of the exhibition.