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Photo 2020 takes shape

Photo 2020, Melbourne’s inaugural potentially ‘world-leading’ biennial photography festival, has recruited performing arts administrator, Clare McKenzie, as executive director, opened entries for a photobook prize, and announced the winner of a $15,000 Photography Fellowship.

Clare McKenzie.

Elias Redstone, Photo 2020 artistic director, said Clare will handle day-to-day management and operational development of the organisation.

‘Prior to joining Photo 2020, Clare was general manager for Ausdance Victoria. She brings extensive skills in management, producing and marketing to our team, with significant experience in national and international market development gained producing tours for Circus Oz and KAGE,’ Elias said in an e-mail.

‘I look forward to working with Clare to deliver Photo 2020 and to plan for future editions.’

In case you missed the news, Photo 2020 is a festival running from April 23 to May 10, 2020 in Melbourne, which Elias describes as ‘Australia’s photography capital’. It has been billed as ‘joining the likes of France’s Rencontres d’Arles, Unseen Amsterdam, and Photo London’.

Photo 2020, adopting the theme of ‘truth’, will consist of free exhibitions, outdoor displays and artist commissions across the city, as well as talks, film screenings,workshops and awards

The festival has locked in over 30 Melbourne and regional arts and educational institutions to participate, including the likes of Melbourne Museum, Monash Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Photography Studies College, State Library of Victoria, and Centre of Contemporary Photography.

Photo 2020 will also extend to galleries in Geelong, Albury/Wodonga, and Bendigo.

While some establishments are participating as exhibition or venue spaces, others have flagged initiatives such as prizes or commissions.

$15K Photography Fellowship
The State Library of Victoria has, for instance, provided a $15,000 Photography Fellowship to Victorian indigenous photographer, Hayley Millar-Baker for her project Australia: B-side.

The project will be an ‘investigation of history – focusing on south-east Victoria from an Aboriginal perspective – weaving new narratives on old “truths” by reconstructing written, verbal and visual histories from the Library archives. The results will be presented as part of PHOTO 2020’.

Here’s a bio published by Photo 2020.
Millar-Baker’s works draw from her grandfather’s archive, family albums, and her own treasured moments captured on and off Country. Meticulously layering, cutting, and repositioning imagery – she depicts a coexistence of times, of cultures, of transformation. Through the application of digital technologies, Millar-Baker aligns disparate times and places – melding the collected imagery from her extensive archive together as one, to tell alternative stories and histories. What would it have been like if Southeast culture had thrived in coexistence with colonisation?
 
Through both materiality and process, Millar-Baker’s assemblages critically explore cultural practices and knowledge’s and investigate notions of blood memory, the evolution of cultural practices and south-east Australian history, all in relation to her own Aboriginal heritage. Millar-Baker’s reflective narrative process enacts a powerful social commentary that acknowledges the strength and resilience of Aboriginal Australia, re-imagines what could have been, and reveals the complexities of Aboriginality now.

Untitled (10) from the series I’m The Captain Now (2016). Photo: Hayley Millar-Barker.

Perimeter International Photobook Prize
Entries for the International Photobook Prize, run by small press publishing house Perimeter Books, are open until August 30. The winner will have their work published, promoted and distributed by Perimeter Editions.

Entries are $45 each, and a PDF proposal including sequence of images must be submitted.

Judges are Elias Redstone, Perimeter directors Justine Ellis and Dan Rule, photographer Emma Phillips, and publisher Michael Mack.

Click here for more info on Photo 2020.

Perimeter HQ.

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