THE BASEMENT – Photography from Prahran College (1968-1981)
Published by Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh) (2025)
Print production Wilco Art Books, Amersfoort (NL) ISBN: 978-1-876764-88-3
277×208mm, 232 pages, 261 images
This significant publication celebrates a key period in the history of the Photography Department at Prahran College, during the years 1968-81. First-hand accounts from people illuminate the related gallery scene and the cultural impact of the College.
It starts with a foreword by the Director of MAPh, an introduction by that gallery’s accompanying exhibition curators, and photos of the Basement’s teachers. There are six chapters covering different aspects – early years and exhibitions, new 1970s photography, street photography, making film, performative portraiture, and student life. Chapters are filled with images, as well as words.
There are illustrated insights into the memories and outputs of three students from the time. And there is an index, lists of students and illustrations, acknowledgments and a colophon. It is a most important new contribution to the published history of photography in Australia.
Contributors include Helen Ennis (who has delivered a number of other significant books about Australian photography – most recently Max Dupain: a portrait – reviewed on this blog), Daniel Palmer (who, with Martin Jolly, produced the excellent Installation view: photography exhibitions in Australia 1848-2020 – also reviewed on this blog), and Gael Newton (who researched and curated the Australian Bicentenary exhibition on the history of photography in Australia).
Ennis writes about the early years, Palmer about exhibitions in Melbourne 1960s-1980s, and Newton provides a visitor’s view. Each essay provides excellent context for the images that follow and the chapters to come.
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| Quirk_Students Peter Johnson, Peter Burgess, Paul Cox & Unknown Potter Prahran _1972 |
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| Paul COX Age of Aquarius (Carol Jerrems, Jan Hurrell) 1970 gelatin silver print Monash Gallery of Art, City of Monash Collection 2000.85 donated by the artist through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program 2000 reproduction courtesy of the artist |
There are chapters by Stella Loftus-Hills (MAPh Curator), Adrian Danks (Associate Professor of Cinema Studies and Media, RMIT University), Angela Connor (MAPh Senior Curator), Bill Henson (a notable leading contemporary photographer) and Susan Van Wyk (NGV Senior Curator), Nanette Carter (photographer turned design historian), Nicholas Nedelkopoulos (contemporary artist), and James McArdle (retired Assoc. Professor, Deakin University). The talent involved with this publication is rather special.
Loftus-Hills’ chapter Down on the Street is about how the conventional art school began to move towards a more progressive teaching approach. A cross-disciplinary approach saw the introduction of a photography department. Teachers fostered creativity and student artists inspired by their desire for personal expression took their cameras to the streets finding and documenting everyday life.
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| Graham HOWE Protester, moratorium to end the war in Vietnam, September 1970 courtesy of the artist |
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| Andrew CHAPMAN Lest we forget 1980 courtesy of the artist |
The Danks chapter is about Paul Cox Making Film, frequently casting students as actors and using them as stills photographers and cinematographers, developing their skills and fostering community.
The Performative Portrait chapter has two parts. Connor discovered “many photographic gems” including Polly Borland’s “wonderful student folio from the early 1980s”. And A conversation between Bill Henson and Susan van Wyk is precisely that, with the former responding to questions from the latter.
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| Christopher KOLLER Bauhausler 1980 silver gelatin print courtesy of the artist |
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| Polly BORLAND Nick 1983 pigment inkjet print courtesy of the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf (Melbourne) |
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| Stella SALLMAN Sue on the bed, Bondi 1978 courtesy of the artist |
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| Robert ASHTON Carol Davies, Peter Crowe, Carol Jerrems, Richard Muggleton 1970 courtesy of the artist |
Student Life has three parts. Carter - only at Prahran College in 1974 - writes of “a vibrant and dynamic environment that nurtured creativity, experimentation and community.” Her words immediately reminded me of some social media photography groups I am part of, which very much do the same albeit as online communities. The world has changed, but the immense value of such environments continues.
Nedelkopoulos looks back on his Prahran days with fondness because of their value to the rest of his creative life. And McArdle shares many personal memories; Athol Shmith ordering his students to freeze as they were and look around at the various poses of everyone else as doing that with any person would tell them how to photograph anyone. Cox’s challenge ‘Is it possible to photograph God?’ later inspired him to set the assignment ‘Photograph God’ for his own students.
Most readers will know at least some of the contributors mentioned earlier. I recall the first time I saw an exhibition of Henson’s work - Big Pictures (at the Australian National University’s Drill Hall Gallery). I very much value James McArdle’s major contribution to photography through his blog https://onthisdateinphotography.com/. There are a number of pieces on it about this book and accompanying exhibition.
There are, unsurprisingly, various other very well-known Australian photographers who were part of The Basement. They include the teachers Shmith (one of his books was the first acquired for my personal collection), John Cato and Cox. Then there is Carol Jerrems (recently the subject of a major retrospective at Australia’s National Portrait Gallery – also reviewed on this blog).
This review is also available on the author's blog here.