Call Out: Garage Sale

Watt Space are calling for entries for their 2012 Open Prize Exhibition. Current students are invited to respond to the impact human civilisation is having on the environment. For full details check Watt Space's website where you can download an entry form and get cracking. Entries are due Friday 27 April with the exhibition opening 17 May 2012. As for materials, it seems anything goes. Think recycled, new vs old, or mix it up with a bit of this and a bit of that.

Background: Seascape

Untitled, 2011
RYAN FITZGERALD

Click Culture's Background has just changed to this image by Ryan Fitzgerald. We're looking to get back into changing the Background image regularly. All students are invited to submit images for possible publication. If you've got an image that you'd like to submit email David the image resized to 1800 px wide at 72 ppi.

Identity: Family Portrait by Natalie Engdahl

From the series Family Portrait, 2011
NATALIE ENGDAHL

Identity: Kirby Weller

Untitled, 2012
KIRBY WELLER

Eileen Kuzmic: Beyond the Archive

Beyond the Archive, 2011
EILEEN KUZMIC

Eileen Kuzmic's work from the Constructing With Light course in semester two 2011 has been accepted into the The Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) National Museum. Eileen's project for Journey Beyond the Archive responded to Australia's Forgotten Generation using archives to discuss a sad chapter in Australia's social history. Eileen's statement about the work follows and we send out a heart congratulations for a stelar effort.

Beyond the Archive
Memory echoes the experience of a lifetime. If that experience is tainted a haunted memory erupts in place of peace. The childhood loss of family, home and familiar surroundings is enmeshed with the experience of institutional abuse. Memory is haunted with the notion of what is lost, what has happened and what could have been. With no memory markers in family and no link to past comfort; past memory becomes a disturbed link that collides with new memory.

Traces of pain are deposited within the individual, family and within the home; infecting the community. A need to remember and be remembered is vital to heal the damage of past and present memory.

Feedback: Michael Baker

Work in Progress, all images above
MICHAEL BAKER

Yesterday's Review for Studio to Bureau saw some great ideas emerge from the Telling Tales project. In the afternoon group Michael Baker presented his work for comment and critical feedback. Last night Michael went back to his idea and created the images above. Mike's work is looking at the rubbish left behind, often in range of young children. I've opened this post for feedback. All students in either the morning or afternoon class are welcome to offer feedback.

Short List: The results are in

Vestiges #3 2010
Archival Digital pigment print, 115x 80cm
Courtesy the artist and William Wright Artists Projects Sydney
EUGENIA RASKOPOULOS

Jack Charles

RODERICK MCNICOL

Mariko, 2011
Louis Lim

With the results in for National Photographic Portrait Prize (below), Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Award (above) and the inaugural Queensland Festival of Photography Portrait Prize (bottom) we're curious to get some thoughts from you, out students. What do you think of the wining works? Did the judges get it right? We mentioned Simone Darcy was selected for both the QFP and the Josephine Ulrick, scoring second prize in the former. Congratulations Simone!

Identity: Entries are in, show coming late April

Higher Self Portraits, 2011
LYNDA LEE LEWIS

Entries for the Identity photographic exhibition at Wattspace have just closed. The show opens April 26 and promises to challenge the notion of identity told through photography. We'll be featuring works from the show here in coming weeks.

Sydney Shows

Work in progress, 2012
SIMONE PATERSON

A couple of weeks back second and third year Photomedia students at UoN went to Sydney to see a number of photographic shows and to hear Simone Paterson present her current research as part of her Artspace residency. On the day Simone mentioned a few works and has kindly submitted some links for further research. Bill Viola's Ocean Without a Shore at the Venice Biennale in 2007 was one, Laurie Anderson was another and the link to the iPad app mentioned can be found here. You can see Simone's work on her website, or follow her blog for the latest. Don't forget that Simone will be here soon and will give a more in depth talk about her practice on May 2.

Showing: Magnum Contact Sheets

  Image: Burt Glinn- Spain. Sagaro. 1959. Twenty-five-year-old Elizabeth Taylor
on the set of "Suddenly Last Summer", in which she co-stars with
Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift, (detail).
COPYRIGHT: BURT GLINN/MAGNUM PHOTOS

Sydney's Stills Gallery is hosting Magnum Contact Sheets, an intriguing exhibition of contact sheets from some of Magnum's best photographers. With Art Month in full swing, the revamped MCA about to open and Head On in the distance, Sydney is the place for inspired art.

Look Out: Conor Ashleigh

CONOR ASHLEIGH

Conor Ashleigh's Our World Unseen exhibition is currently on at the Lovett Gallery in Newcastle. Conor's keen sense of moment, colour, emotion and light is beautifully highlighted in photographs that grab attention and hold the gaze. Whilst Conor's photographs are strongly grounded in the journalistic, the sense of mood prevailing commands considered readings. The exhibition has a couple of weeks left to run, and we strongly recommend you catch it. Second and third years students are reminded that Conor will be giving a special talk at Lovett Gallery on March 24 at 9.30am. Check Blackboard for full details. We also suggest keeping an eye on Conor's blog to see what he's up to.

Short List: Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert

Ahn & Pete from the Bus Stop Project, 2011
SIMONE DARCY

We're excited to have four former students in the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award 2012. We'll be keeping a close eye on proceedings and wish Izablea Pluta, Roger Hanley, Simone Darcy and Lindsay Gosper the best of luck for the final selection. The exhibition opens March 31 and will run through to May 13 at the Gold Coast City Gallery. In the meantime check out the short list here.

Call out: This Is Not Art

The 2011 Zine Fair

Proposals for the 2012 This Is Not Art festival are currently being called for. More information can be found on TINA's website. The deadline is 1 April 2012, and we don't think it's an April Fool's joke. Why not be a part of what is Newcastle's most exciting cultural event.

Showing: Shan Turner-Carroll

From the exhibition Re'im
SHAN TURNER-CARROLL

Opening tonight at Watt Space is Shan Turner-Carroll's whimsical exhibition Re'im. The exhibition centres around the family property where he, his sister and his brother grew up. Conjuring memories of times past, the series calls to mind the experience of play, of alter egos, dreams and hopes dashed. There's far more lingering underneath the surface. Shan's work invites the viewer to plunge its depths and remember. Be sure to check other photographic work by Zyanya Walker and Emilie Caillot also opening tonight.

Look Out: Jon Rafman

Nacozari De Garcia – Montezuma, Sonora, Mexico
JON RAFMAN

Google's influence on the art making community continues with the work of Jon Rafman. His project The Nine Eyes of Google Street View is an illuminating look at the global reach of Google's cameras and the surprising moments presented for voyeuristic viewing from the safety of our living rooms. It calls to mind Joan Fontcuberta's challenging Googlegrams, with both artists calling into question the ubiquity of image making in the 21st century.