The Camera Unrepair Shop

Exhibition Review | Visual Art | Brian Rope

The Camera Unrepair Shop | UK Frederick

Photo Access | 14 August – 13 September 2025

Entering the gallery my first sight of The Camera Unrepair Shop caused me to wonder just what was being exhibited. Three shelves on the wall filled with an assortment of analogue cameras and a table with a few seemingly random pieces of photo paraphernalia on it. But, when I took a closer look and thought about it, I soon saw a simple photographic shop.

First Sight - The Camera Unrepair Shop Installation Image © Brian Rope 

Promotional material informs us that the exhibition combines installation, cyanotype process and performance to reflect on the nature of photography, its evolution, and the unseen labour behind film-based imagery. And that the artist, UK Frederick, dismantles cameras, creating blueprints of their anatomy, subverting the usual production-to-waste narrative. This experimental work provokes contemplation about the current state of photography amid emerging technologies.

In fact, the artist did that dismantling live in the gallery during the exhibition, then created photograms and cyanotype blueprints from the parts. Those results have accumulated and surrounded the workspace with an evolving collection of “mechanical unmaking”. Circumstances have prevented me from revisiting to see the additions to the archive, but some fine examples were in place when I visited soon after the show began.

Unrepaired Cyanotypes Installation Image © Brian Rope

The-Camera-Unrepair-Shop-UK-Frederick © Fernanda Pedroso

A catalogue essay by Vahri McKenzie sheds further light on what Frederick is doing here. She once visited the Detroit Institute of the Arts and saw some of Diego Rivera’s murals depicting tourists visiting the nearby Ford Motor Company factory and watching the labourers at work creating cars. Visitors to this gallery during this exhibition similarly have had opportunities to watch this artist labouring to create artworks.

So, as the essay says, the artworks created become a collaboration between the artist, the cameras she “unrepairs” and the observers who went to the gallery to watch the creative process happening in the camera unrepair shop.

The-Camera-Unrepair-Shop-UK-Frederick © Fernanda Pedroso

The-Camera-Unrepair-Shop-UK-Frederick © Fernanda Pedroso

The-Camera-Unrepair-Shop-UK-Frederick © Fernanda Pedroso

Frederick herself tells us in the catalogue that her primary modes of art practice are photography, printmaking and video. As an archaeologist, her art practice is informed by her interests in material culture and the way people interact with each other and their worlds.

So, this is a rather different exhibition and well worth visiting and exploring. It is correctly described as a durational performance and mixed media installation of cameras, cyanotypes and photograms. I wish I had had the opportunity to see parts of the performance first-hand, and more of the archive created since I saw its early stage.

It is worth watching the video of an Artist in Conversation: UK Frederick event. You can see gaps in the camera equipment on the shelves and the increase in the quantity of cyanotypes and photograms. During the event Frederick refers to the cyanotypes referencing the blueprint as a process of design, but also as a collection of prints representing the process that goes into making art that eventually goes onto the wall or wherever – in a sense each artwork is a portrait of an unrepaired camera. Her thought processes and discussion of ideas provide much for us to contemplate.

Screenshot from Photo Access video of UK Frederick Artist in Conversation event 30.08.2025

This review is also available on the author's blog here.

A Lens on the Lake, & Kambah

Photography | Brian Rope

A Lens on the Lake | Andrea Bryant

Kambah | Louise Curham

Tuggeranong Arts Centre | 20 Jan – 24 Mar 2023

These two separate exhibitions are both outcomes of explorations by their respective artists.

A Lens on the Lake is a series of abstracted moments Andrea Bryant has gathered whilst exploring life around Lake Tuggeranong. Shot predominantly with an infrared converted digital camera, the surreal scenes are part of a broader project focusing on the health of Canberra waterways and their direct environments.

Kambah, by Louise Curham, is also part of a larger project that is ongoing.

She is interested in the history of Kambah and is making an online digital Kambah People’s Map. As she develops the map, Curham will include images and stories shared with her during public programs at the arts centre whilst the exhibitions are on display. Bryant is also conducting a workshop. Details of those events can be found at https://www.tuggeranongarts.com/whats-on/.

Bryant completed a Diploma in Photography and Photographic Imaging in 2019 at the Canberra Institute of Technology. Her practice focuses on the use of abstraction. Working primarily with black and white photography, she juxtaposes disregarded things with the natural world – thus reflecting on our penchant for destroying the environment.

Here Bryant shows us thirty-six framed fine art prints. Whilst most are black and white, a small number are vibrantly coloured. The images were developed over several years from meditative walks at Lake Tuggeranong, prompted by copious amounts of rubbish discarded in the area.

Amongst the subjects for Bryant’s camera are, inevitably, a shopping trolley and graffiti. But there is also the floating wetland’s structure, people relaxing, fishing gear, filaments, the skatepark, and a black swan. There are even images of Einstein and his “intelligent eye”.

 

Relaxing 1 © Andrea Bryant

Relaxing 2 © Andrea Bryant

Filaments © Andrea Bryant

Mimis © Andrea Bryant

Each walk taken uncovered new debris, different structures and diverse wildlife that Bryant has transformed through artistic use of infrared to shift the commonplace in a way that stirs curiosity. Largely stripped of context, the artist invites us to reconsider our relationship to what have become mysterious or puzzling forms within the landscape.

Floating Wetlands, 2021 © Andrea Bryant

Schism © Andrea Bryant

Tension between unpleasant dumped objects and the beauty found in their forms is intriguing. Bryant’s reframing draws us to reconsider how we move through our environment and the actions we take to pollute or restore it.

This artist is to be congratulated on this, her first solo show, and on the messages she has successfully conveyed.

Curham uses art, and archivist expertise, to explore how we can look after things we can’t digitise. She invites people to think about the wisdom accompanying things they want to keep and how it can be passed on. She focuses on old media and the lessons that can be learned from it.

Kambah, a suburb of Canberra first settled in 1974, was not designed according to the 'neighbourhood' philosophy guiding suburban design and is the largest in Canberra. It took its name from the once prosperous Kambah sheep and cattle farm. The property was sub-divided; Village Creek waterway went underground. Seeking to build community, Curham invites residents, alumni and visitors to select the contents of an archive about Kambah.

The exhibition displays a digital map built from the community’s answers to the question ‘what do you know about Kambah that you think is important to share with others?’ Alongside the map is a series of images of Kambah made using pinhole and cyanotype photography. Both processes have created very literal but diverse portraits of Kambah.

Kambah people's map digital map - © Louise Curham

Urambi20 - © Louise Curham

Pinhole06 - © Louise Curham

The subjects include the historic Urambi Woolshed, the IGA, a bike, casuarinas, dusk (towards the Brindabellas) and cleared woodlands. It all makes for an intriguing show that gallery visitors should spend time with, especially Kambah residents.

Woolshed - © Louise Curham

IGA from Boddington - © Louise Curham

Clearing at Kambah - © Louise Curham

This review was first published online on 9.2.23 by The Canberra Times here and then in the printed paper on 13.2.23. It is also available on the author's blog here.