Journeys North

Clare Williamson Acting Curator (Prints,Drawings and Photographs) Photographic practice in Queensland in the 1980s: oneaspect 1 Journeys North brings together an important body of work by six contemporary Australian photographers: Graham Burstow, Lin Martin, Robert Mercer, Glen O'Malley, Charles Page and Max Pam.With the financial assistance of the Australian Bicentennial Authority, the Queensland Art Gallery commissioned each photographer to produce a portfolio on the theme of community life in Queensland. The commissionings mark an important form of patronage for Australian photography and can be related to earlier projects such as the CSR Photography Project and the commissionings for the Australian Parliament House in Canberra. Journeys North is particularly supportive of Queensland photography as all of the photographers have been long term residents of Queensland or have strong associations with the State. Since the 1970s, photography as an artform has seen a rapid rise in Australia in both practice and assessment. This development has been evidenced by the establishment of the Australian Centre for Photography together with the founding of commercial galleries and magazines specializing in photography. Photography courses were introduced at many art colleges, and state galleries began or recommenced collecting photography. After the 1960s, when photography appeared within art almost solely as documentation of happenings, performance art and conceptual art, photography as an artform in its own right developed along widely diverging paths. These have included photography which reflects current aspects of society, that which pursues purely formalist concerns with composition and light, or more recent work in which manipulation of the image is openly challenging traditional notions of the camera as an objective recorder of reality. 5