MICHEAL RILEY, TRACEY MOFFATT, AVRIL QUAILL & FIONA FOLEY
’BY A WINDOW’
CURATED BY SÎAN MCINTYRE (VERGE) & CLAIRE MONNERAYE (ACP)
4 AUGUST – 27 AUGUST, 2016
By the window, 2016, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: To the left of the image is a single black-and-white framed photograph hung on a white wall. On walls in the background and on the right hand side of the image, there are multiple political posters, newspaper clippings, booklets and photographs on the walls, with a display table held by two wooden trestles in the center of the space.
EXHIBITION STATEMENT
By a window was an exhibition about two photographs, the people who made them and the stories they reveal. This exhibition was also an invitation to explore the history of the areas surrounding the University of Sydney and a platform to highlight some people and organisations that have had the passion and drive to create change locally, nationally and internationally.
CW: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this exhibition contains images, voices and names of people who have passed away.
By the window, 2016, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: A close-up shot of a black-and-white archival photograph placed in the display tables amongst other images. The central photograph is of an Indigenous Australian child in a light shirt holding a paintbrush. Their head is tilted to the side and they are smiling while looking into the camera. Close behind them is a white Australian child, smiling widely into the camera. The other images in the display are more black-and-white archival photographs. They depict young children or domestic and street spaces.
When Verge Gallery and the Australian Centre for Photography decided to develop a collaborative project in 2015, the initial idea was to investigate the photographic collection of the University of Sydney Union art collection and find new ways to think and present key works. Integral to the project was the development of a curatorial mentoring program that would benefit two students currently enrolled at the University of Sydney.
Amongst the vast collection, two photographs were simply unavoidable, two portraits from the larger series Portraits by a window shot by renowned artist Michael Riley (1960-2004) in 1990. Following the rules of classic photographic portraiture, the series has deeply marked the history of Australian photography and contributed to challenge long-established representational modes.
By the window, 2016, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: Along a wall in the gallery, eight black and white photographs are pinned to the wall. Newspaper clippings are placed on a display shelf on the wall, beside two framed images that are hung on the wall. On the back wall there are two shelves upon which colourful books and magazines are placed and a trestle display table is placed in the center of the space.
As Michael Riley said “I was interested in representing Aboriginal people in a different light, in a different way to the negative images in the paper and media. I’d decided to do an exhibition of portraits called Portraits by a window of young urban Aboriginal people in the ’80s who were doing their own thing, mixing into society, trying to, I suppose, break the stereotype of what Aboriginal people are. It’s a collection of portraits of young Aboriginal people who were striving to do things in their own fields differently. I suppose you could call them ‘movers and shakers’ – people who get out and do things, want to change things, change themselves, want to move on, sort of break away from the stereotype.”
By the window, 2016, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: A close-up shot of a book placed amongst other books and magazines. The title of the book reads "Freedom Ride: A freedom rider remembers" by Ann Curthoys. The cover image contains a black-and-white photograph of young children swimming in the rain. There is a tag at the top of the book cover, with a barcode, indicating that it belongs to the University fo Sydney library. There are pink page markers visible from the top of the book, reading "Freedom Rides: people involved", "Charles Perkins Sydney University", "Decision to do Freedom Rides" and "Beginning of Freedom Rides". Another book next to it also displays a Library barcode and more page markers.
These two incredibly arresting and powerful portraits of Dorothy (Tudley) Delany and Charles and Adams Perkins would become the starting point of months of research and discussion. By a window was our attempt to present some of the many overlapping and interweaving threads, timelines and stories that exist between the artist, the subject of the photographs as well as key sites and movements that have not only significantly shaped the local communities of Chippendale, Darlington and Redfern but also our shared cultural and social identity.
Starting at the University of Sydney from which Charles Perkins graduated in 1966, where The Settlement Neighbourhood Centre was first conceived by the Sydney University Social Services Society and where Michael Riley took his first photography class, on campus at Tin Sheds. The exhibition then followed the traces of Perkins and the 1965 Student Action Plan for Aborigines Freedom Ride.
By the window, 2016, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: Attached to the wall is a flat-screen monitor with a pair of headphones hung on the wall. The image on the monitor is a close-up of a person's face as they are looking to the left of the screen. They are wearing a respirator mask that covers the bottom half of their face.
By a window also recognised Boomalli Aboriginal Artist Cooperative in Chippendale, founded by Riley and significant peers, where he shot his Portraits by a window series; this is also where Dorothy Delaney worked before working at The Settlement, a community centre in Redfern established in 1925 by the Sydney University Women Society that was formed by Jane Foss in 1891. In a phone conversation with Dorothy she explained The Settlement as “the settling of differences between white and black”.
Visitors also encountered key artists such as Tracey Moffatt, Avril Quaill and Fiona Foley, all of whom were founding members of Boomalli thirty years ago and participated in significant community projects such as The Settlement Mural Project in 1985 or The South Sydney Visual History Project, organised by Geoffrey Weary in collaboration with Tin Sheds in 1983.
By the window, 2016, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: The gallery has images hung on multiple white walls. On the left hand side, there is a single black-and-white framed photograph of the a woman wearing a hat and looking to the top left corner of the image. Multiple political posters and another framed black-and-white photograph are hung on the wall further at the back. A display table held by two wooden trestles is placed to the right in the image, housing more photographs.
The stories in By a window were also deeply linked to our two institutions, whilst Verge Gallery is located on the Jane Foss Russell Plaza, on the previous site of the old Tin Sheds workshops, the Australian Centre for Photography supported Michael Riley’s practice through exhibitions and darkroom access.
As visitors watched, read and unpacked the many pieces of archival material and documentation available to browse, they were invited to contribute their own memories and histories on the timeline in the exhibition space. It is our hope that the people, places and histories represented in this exhibition provided an opportunity to learn and be inspired the possibilities that can be reached through passion and community.