Canberra Contemporary Photographic Prize 2026

Visual Art Exhibition Review | Brian Rope

Canberra Contemporary Photographic Prize 2026 I Various Artists

Photo Access I 16 July – 15 August 2026

The Canberra Contemporary Photographic Prize is an annual competition event conducted by Photo Access which results in an exhibition celebrating both emerging and established talents in photo media. Open to photographers worldwide, regardless of experience level, it showcases new perspectives in contemporary photography, offering a kaleidoscopic view of photographic art.

Forty finalists’ artworks are on display. The winning piece this year is 엄마의 초상화 (Portrait of My Mother), 2026 by Estelle Yoon. At the opening, after this was announced, I was one of many people who went in to check it out and overheard several of them querying how it could possibly be a portrait of the artist’s mother - given that there was no physical person in the image. Rather it is a photograph of an empty chair at the edge of an otherwise empty structure overlooking a frozen lake with part of a bridge in the background. So the questions in the viewers minds were fair enough.

Estelle Yoon - 엄마의 초상화 (Portrait of My Mother), 2026, glass, 35mm photograph, 43 x 28 cm

(image courtesy photo access)

However, referral to the artist’s statement answers everything. The location is the artist’s late mother’s childhood home. She imagined her mother sitting there. The print is on glass, thus mirroring the fragile nature of our memories. The portrait attempts to hold on to what is gone. So, in my view, this artwork is a worthy choice by the judges.

There are, inevitably, numerous other works that might be selected as the best by different viewers. But that’s the way it always is with competitions. From the forty works selected as finalists, I felt that a large number of them would have been serious contenders and I’m glad I didn’t have to make the choice. I don’t have room to discuss all of them, but here are my comments about a small selection of the others.

Lisa Jayne Cramer’s work is also about a mother, but a very different one. Hidden Mother I-III, 2026 is a triptych which tells a powerful story about the artist’s desire to be a mother which never eventuated despite years of persistence. Her dream, her hoped for role as a mother, sadly evaporated leaving her to grieve, to let go, to care for herself rather than the child she wanted. As a person who adopted children because we couldn’t produce our own, this work spoke loudly to me.

Lisa Jayne Cramer - Hidden Mother I-III, 2026, archival pigment print, 41.2 × 97.6 cm
(image courtesy photo access)

Danica Chappell’s Kaleidoscope series, 2025 is another delightful triptych. I think this is the first time I have seen an albumen work that is hand-coloured on vintage typewriter paper. I love the fact that the artist has flouted the long-held “rule” that light-sensitive paper or film should never be touched. That was drummed into my head years ago, along with the need to ensure our workspaces in darkrooms and water used in processing were all clean. Experimentation is how, as artists, people learn and develop new skills – and produce this type of most interesting work.

Danica Chappell - Kaleidoscope series, 2025, albumen,
hand coloured on vintage typewriter paper, 41.5 x 97.8 cm
(image courtesy photo access)

It is partly for the same reason that I enjoyed Resurfacing Roots, 2025 by Anna Kiparis. She used Maribyrnong River mud water to submerge her analogue film photographs of the landscape to mirror and commemorate the impacts of the 2022 Maribyrnong River flood. The resultant artwork shown in this exhibition speaks clearly to us.

Anna Kiparis - Resurfacing Roots, 2025, Maribyrnong River mud water,
pigment ink on cotton rag, 80 x 55 cm
(image courtesy photo access)

Josh Hughes has produced a most interesting video work titled How do you move?, 2026. It focusses exclusively on isolated body parts (the hands, feet, and mouth). It pushes and pulls, pitting ‘opposing actions’ against each other and revealing a grey area in between. It is well worth spending 4 minutes 38 seconds to view and listen to it all.

Josh Hughes - How do you move?, 2026, single-channel digital video, sound, 00:04:38
installation dimensions variable
(image courtesy photo access)

The final artwork I will specifically mention is Together/Apart, 2025 by Ryan Dandelion. It is simply a contact silver gelatin print of a dry glass plate negative which cracked as he removed it from the holder to tray develop. The crack passed through the stone of a ring upon a pair of crossed hands. That simple mishap spoke to the artist, saying “Together yet forever apart.”

Ryan Dandelion - Together/Apart, 2025, silver gelatin print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm
(image courtesy photo access)

There is so much of interest amongst the forty works on display. The exhibition is well worth a visit, but if you are not able to get there you can (at the time of my writing this) see all the actual works (not installation views of them) and read the artist statements here.

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

Time Carved In Stone

 Book Review by Brian Rope

Time Carved In Stone: Benjamin Kopilow

All photographs, text and design by Benjamin Kopilow

Published by Benjamin Kopilow, ©2026. All rights reserved.

1^st Edition. Published in Canberra, Australia

ISBN: 978-1-291-82268-7

The cover of the book - image © Benjamin Kopilow

Benjamin Kopilow is a photographer, teacher and mentor. I have personally experienced Ben in all those roles when he has spoken and shown his images at our local photographic society, and evaluated members’ works providing quality commentary and advice.

Kopilow’s interest in visual art didn’t begin with photography, but with conversations with his painter father as he grew up - about colour, shape, light, and composition. Painting wasn’t his talent, but photography became his way of exploring those same ideas. More than twenty years after a mid-30s career change to photography, this experienced and award-winning photographer says he is still fascinated by the way light, colour and composition can transform an ordinary scene into something memorable.

In 2025 Kopilow and his wife travelled through some of the world's great desert and wilderness places, those of California and the Great Colorado Basin. He says the four weeks journey enabled him to explore and experience those places through form, shadow, texture, colour, and scale. He believes landscapes are sculptures shaped by time, and geological forces, then revealed in different ways by ever changing light.

Using images captured during the journey, Kopilow has now created this book. Time Carved in Stone is not simply images showing readers where they travelled. Much more significantly, this artist (for that is what he is) through his photo-art and accompanying words enables us to vicariously see what he refers to as a journey through deep time.

Each of twenty chapters looks at another place. First up is Death Valley with its salt-cracked floor. The last explores the polished granite walls of Yosemite National Park, well-known for the famous Ansel Adams’ images of it. 

Death Valley © Benjamin Kopilow

Along the way we see various canyons including, of course, the Grand Canyon. The Kolb Brothers (who invented the selfie) pioneered the capturing of this canyon’s beauty in black and white in the early 1900s, but Kopilow’s beautiful colour images here are something else. We see the folded spine of Capitol Reef and the vast red silence of Monument Valley. The artist tells us that all of his landscape images are not merely describing, they allow us to see them in quiet contemplation. He is right.

Before the first chapter there are informative words, a map and an image of the Colorado Basin. Then there are 64 pages of glorious images revealing, amongst other features, Kanab and Horseshoe Bend.

Kanab Sand Caves © Benjamin Kopilow

Next some words about and images of Monument Valley inform and reveal to us that the glorious landscape and the magical sounds of traditional flutes of the Navajo. Then we learn about numerous other locations, including Factory Butte, Hickman Bridge, Escalante, Kodachrome Basin, Maple Mountain Provo, and Great Salt Lake.

In the chapter about Factory Butte there is an illustrated page of information about Buttes, Mesas, Pinnacles and Hoodoos. Here it is, so you can read it and learn if, like me, you need to.

If, again like me, you have never visited some of these places, you may not have even heard their names. Nevertheless, as you explore the pages you will recognise particular features because you have seen photos of them before. But there will be many other features that are new to you. Regardless of which category any particular image fits into for each of us, every one of them is an excellent sensory contribution to our appreciation of the geological history of these areas.

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Land © Benjamin Kopilow

The images in each chapter reveal peaceful places that our minds can return to without necessarily looking at them again. I suspect those who practice meditation would consider them most useful resources.

Bryce Canyon & Fairyland © Benjamin Kopilow

We are able to explore these places that have been shaped by geology – by prehistoric oceans and inland seas, vanished deserts, restless rivers. For hundreds of millions of years, unseen geological forces have been quietly sculpting. It has been said that in these places is North America’s hidden backbone, the ancient core beneath us when flying or driving over, or walking amongst, them.

Moonscape Canyon © Benjamin Kopilow

The quality of both the words and images in this book provide a basis for us to think about the passage of time and its significance in life. Kopilow has used his personal sensory experiences to create images which have transformed the centuries old landscapes into living archives. He has delivered an excellent contribution to what is known as the quiet narrative genre, which relies primarily on his visual storytelling to convey messages, evoke emotions, and provoke thought. It challenges our perceptions and offers a deeper understanding of our human experiences.

Links to make purchases of the book in e-book, paperback and hard cover formats are available on the artist’s website, Lulu, Kobo and Ben’s Books.

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

 

 

Murrudha: Sovereign Walks

 Visual Art Exhibition Review | Brian Rope

Murrudha: Sovereign Walks | Dr Matilda House, Brenda L. Croft, William James Mildenhall, Prue Hazelgrove, Dean Freeman, Cheryl Davison, Shane Herrington

ANU School of Art & Design Gallery | 7 July - 7 August 2026

In her capacity as team leader for the Australian National University (ANU) Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Grand Challenge, Professor Brenda L. Croft drew inspiration from her ancestors' sovereign acts. 

Protesting genocidal conditions imposed on them over eight decades of colonial and unsettler-colonial impact, more than 200 Gurindji (and related nations and clans) stockmen and their families marched off the 2nd Wave Hill Station in outback Australia in 1966. Together with an earlier sovereign action in 1963 by Yolngu people, their 22-kilometer Walk-Off Track garnered national and international coverage and support over nearly nine years of activism. It became seen as the origins of the national land rights movement.

In 1927, senior Wiradjuri walamira (clevermen) Nangar/Yangar (c.1848-1927) also known as Jimmy Clements), and Ooloogan (c. 1840-1928) also known as George John Noble and Marvellous together completed a 3 days, 93 miles (150 kilometres) walk. It was undertaken in order to demonstrate their sovereignty by being present for the official opening of the new federal Parliament House on 9 and 10 May on Ngambri/Ngunawal homelands in the, then, recently established national capital, Canberra. Contemporary press clippings acknowledge their participation as defending their sovereign rights to their traditional Country.

They walked from the Brungle Station (also known as Brungle Community), nestled between Gundagai and Tumut on Walgalu/Wiradyuri Country, across the Brindabella Range to Canberra. It has been (and is) the driving force for the Challenge project

Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track #14 is the fourteenth outcome associated with the Challenge project "Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – tracking cultural actions through art, Country, language and music".

The Murrudha team and First Nations community members have undertaken two test walks determining Nangar and Ooloogan’s route, with a final test walk undertaken for the 99th anniversary in May 2026.

This exhibition showcases creative-led research in progress since 2020, including audio-visual documentation, alongside creative art and craftworks by a number of First Nations, and some non-Indigenous, artists associated with the project. The room sheet available at the exhibition provides background information regarding the various significant people integral to the project.

At the exhibition’s official opening guests heard a great presentation by Dr Aunty Matilda House OAM singing up Country and were treated to a wonderful performance by the Djinama Yalaga choir. And exhibition curator, Professor Croft, spoke passionately about the project. I mention that because all of those things added wonderfully to the visual art on display.

Dr Aunty Matilda House OAM © Brian Rope

Djinama Yalaga choir © Brian Rope

Professor Brenda L. Croft © Brian Rope

There are 35 diverse works in the exhibition including three audiovisuals to spend time with, two artworks by Dr Matilda House on loan from the Canberra Museum and Gallery Collection, and three photographs. Two of the latter show indigenous people on the steps of Parliament House – one on 10 May 1927, the other on 23 November 2023. The third is of George John Noble aka Marvellous with a dog, pre-1926. These photos are by William James Mildenhall and Prue Hazelgrove.

Aunty Matilda House was born in 1945 and is a proud Ngambri-Ngunnawal woman who has determinedly pursued social justice for Indigenous people in the wider community. She is well known and respected, indeed loved, by the general community of Canberra, all of whom have been at various events when Aunty has welcomed them to Country. It is good to have her artwork included here.

Many Canberrans know about the Mildenhall collection which comprises more than 7,700 images on glass plate negatives and has significant cultural and historical value to all Australians. Hazelgrove specialises in the wet plate collodion process. The inkjet print from her original tintype nicely complements the Mildenhall works.

Still image from: Brungle to Canberra – Final Test Walk 4-8 May 2026 (Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track # 14), projection. Participants: Brungle First Nations community members, Bugang Bila Indigenous Rangers (Tumut, Brungle, Snowy Mountains area), Professor Brenda L Croft, Monika Duggan, Terry Cleary, Rohit Rao (ANU). Drone operator/A-V documenter: Colin Elphick, Numeral Creative. 

Dr Matilda House (Williams), Murumbeeja dooligah, 1996, Edition 1 /6. Printer Jan Hogan and Theo Trembly Studio One Inc Canberra. Canberra Museum and Gallery Collection.

Jimmy Clements (also known as Nangar, Yangar or ‘King Billy’) on the front steps of Parliament House, c. 10 May 1927. Photograph by William James Mildenhall. Inkjet print on archival paper. National Archives of Australia.

Prue Hazelgrove, Nangar and Ooloogan Descendants on steps of Old Parliament House, 23 November 2023, as part of Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track #4, 24 November 2023. Inkjet print on archival paper, (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

There is a superb acrylic gouache on rag board by Cheryl Davison, some beautiful wood coolamons by Dean Freeman, and an impressive bark canoe and wooden spears by Shane Herrington. And, last but not least, numerous high quality inkjet prints (from original tintypes) by Brenda L. Croft. Davison’s artwork is inspired by the river that flows from the mountains to the sea (a phrase Canberrans know well) through the Country of her grandfather. Making cultural objects allows Freeman to connect with what his Ancestors used in their daily lives. Herrington’s approach also fosters a deep connection to cultural heritage. Croft’s artworks here are some of her First Nations portraits created since 2019.

Cheryl Davison, Still on Country, 2026, acrylic gouache on rag board, 70 x 57 cm.

 

Dean Freeman, gulaman (coolamons) (installation), 2023-26, wood, dimensions variable

Installation image © Brian Rope

Shane Herrington, Murlin (bark canoe) 2026. Bark, bush string, dimensions variable

And Spears, 2026. Wood, bush string, dimensions variable

Installation image © Brian Rope

Brenda L. Croft, Julie (Dhulanyagan clan, Yorta Yorta/Wiradjuri/Wurundjeri Peoples), 2024 from the series Naabámi (thou shall/will see): Barangaroo (army of me). 42 x 27.9cm, inkjet print (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

Brenda L. Croft, Men of High Degree: Jim Everett – puralia meenamatta (clan plangermairreenner, Ben Lomond people, Cape Portland nation, north-east Tasmania), 2023. 42 x 27.9cm, inkjet print (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

 

There it is - art, Country, language and music. All feature in this excellent and important exhibition - and in planned associated events. Please see it in person if you are able to.

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

Arthur Boyd: Tapestries

Visual Art Exhibition Review | Brian Rope

Arthur Boyd: Tapestries | Curated by Adam Lindsay and Elspeth Pitt

National Gallery of Australia, Level 1, Gallery 12 | 20 June – 18 October 2026

 
In this major exhibition, the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) is presenting the complete series of twenty monumental tapestries by renowned Australian artist Arthur Boyd. He is one of Australia’s most celebrated artists, whose long career encompassed multi-genres including painting, printmaking and ceramics. Until now his tapestries have received relatively little attention.

Boyd has said that art is a journey to unknown destinations and that the more we embrace the unknown the richer our journeys become. That resonates deeply with all creatives as it beautifully expresses the essence of artistic exploration. These tapestries are only one part of his extensive artistic exploration of the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Through the 1950s and into the 60s, Boyd’s interest in Saint Francis arguably became obsessive. In 1965, he exhibited a series of pastel drawings exploring Francis.

Despite not selling many of those artworks, he later chose twenty and sent high quality images of them to the famous Portuguese tapestry workshop Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre commissioning them to make these tapestries – which were acquired by the NGA in 1975. Fifty years later the twenty tapestries are all being exhibited together for the first time anywhere.

We’ve all heard of Saint Francis, for there have been movies about him and he has been written about more than most people. But some of us know more about him than others. And many of us may not be aware of, or appreciate, what made him so interesting to Boyd. Francis is said to have devoted his life to poverty, piety and prayer and he founded the Franciscan Order. He also loved nature. Pope Gregory IX canonised him two years after his death in a chapel near Assisi.

Boyd drew on biographies, figures and stories regarding Francis for both personal and universal reflections. Some of his artworks absolutely reflect accounts of events in the Saint’s life. Others show imagined events mostly based on Boyd’s explorations of biblical and literary sources. The works explore universal human conditions.

At 2.5 by 3.4 metres, each tapestry is a scene in the Boyd’s retelling of the life of Francis. Woven at a scale more than 20 times larger than Boyd’s original source images, and each containing between 4 and 8.5 million stitches, the finished textiles are a testament to the collaborative process of artistic creation.

The 20 textiles, known as the Life of St Francis (1970–74), inspire awe in their vision, scale and artistry. They are shown here alongside lithographs, pastels and drawings that demonstrate the creative and technical processes involved in their translation across media. And there is a beautiful accompanying publication which unpicks this textile cycle’s fascinating context and weaves together the story of their creation.

Installation view, Arthur Boyd: Tapestries, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, 2026, Arthur Boyd’s work reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust

Unsurprisingly, the works in this St Francis series are rich in musical associations. Listening to classical music whilst painting was central to Boyd’s creative process. Indeed, during an interview in 1980 he said the music was ‘as important as the actual brushes’.

Walking into the first room of the exhibition, visitors are confronted by a huge portrayal of the weaving process via a film in which weavers using the same techniques as those used to create Boyd’s tapestries check their work at the end of the day. It wonderfully sets the scene for everything else that will be seen as we move through all the spaces.

Weavers at Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre, Portalegre, Portugal, 2025. Courtesy the Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre.

Going further we see so much more than just 20 marvellous tapestries. There are lithographs, pastels and drawings. There are weaving drawings, masses of written information explaining what is in each room, and an excellent documentary video about the installation of the exhibits and Senior Curator Elspeth Pitt visiting Portugal and Assisi. And there are visitors clearly astounded by what they are viewing, exploring individual pieces closely and pointing out particular things to their companions.

Elspeth Pitt, Senior Curator, Australian Art, National Gallery with Arthur Boyd: Tapestries, installation view, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, 2026, Arthur Boyd’s work reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust

Arthur Boyd, Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre, Lurdes Branquinho (draughtsman (intermediary)), St Francis holding St Clare's hair, 1974, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 1975, Arthur Boyd’s work reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust

Arthur Boyd, Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre (tapestry workshop), St Francis lying in the flames, 1972, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 1975, Arthur Boyd's works reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust

Installation view, Arthur Boyd: Tapestries, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, 2026, featuring: Arthur Boyd, Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre, St Francis turning Brother Masseo, 1973; St Francis being beaten by his father, 1973; St Francis blowing Brother Masseo into the air, 1973, purchased 1975, Arthur Boyd’s work reproduced with the permission of Bundanon Trust

When we emerge there is a large, constructed loom display, a wall showing Boyd’s life timeline, the opportunity to participate in workshops, and more. Whether or not tapestry has ever been one of your interests, this is an exhibition not to be missed.

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

VIEW2026

XinShuo Zhuo, Among the Interstices, installation view, 2026.

Image: Gabrielle Hall-Lomax

 

As always when walking into this gallery, the works to the left are the first that visitors see. In this exhibition they are those of XinShuo Zhuo. The large cascading calligraphy scroll is the very successful feature piece amongst numerous small, distressed and toned prints decorating the surrounding wall spaces. The artist is seeking to explore the relationship between images, memory and environment. It draws on Zhuo’s personal life journey so far and encourages us to wonder about the future. Essayist Kung suggests this body of work awakens a tenderness, a fragility, creating an inward expanse that makes room for feeling.

Moving into the space to the right of the entrance, there are works by three more of the artists. On the left Dylan Marriott shows us two pieces from a forthcoming solo show he is to have in Melbourne. One shows youths we are barely able to see lounging along a river’s edge. It is an impressive and powerful work. This artist has said he is jealous of painting’s freedom of expression, yet here he has shown today’s photographers can also be similarly free.

Dylan Marriott, Wake, installation view, 2026.

Image courtesy the artist.

On the long opposite wall and the small end wall of this space there are fourteen pieces by Cass Li. The sole artwork on the end wall is vibrantly coloured capturing attention immediately, so much so that I examined it first before turning back to the other images by Li. Each piece looks at a different aspect of the last days of her grandfather’s life and the mourning period that followed. This documentary series is, for me, the highlight of the exhibition. Initially concluding that Together, There’s No Need to Cry, Li has most successfully pulled together how different generations of her family have dealt with their grief, whilst also tracing the family’s migration journey. Taoist rites, Chinese Timorese ancestry, belongings left behind, and much more are all part of this wonderfully creative and moving, yet documentary, project.

Cass Li, Fung Bao 2013-2024, installation view, 2026.

Image: Gabrielle Hall-Lomax

Cass Li, Popo in Kung Kung’s room, searching, 2024.

Image courtesy the artist.

Finally, in the back room, Elesa Stellios is exhibiting a three-screen video installation, employing an interactive program. And Toni Tait has two works, also involving video. One is described as “remediated video” - remediation being the process of adapting content from one medium to another. Tait’s other work has archival audio, field recording and a section of PVC pipe also contributing.

 

Elesa Stellios, this is how i must look, video still, 2026

Toni Tait, This is Fair Dinkum, video still detail, 2025

Once again, the annual VIEW project has delivered interesting and diverse artworks by another group of early-career artists. The accompanying publication refers to the project being “resolutely focused on the broadest definition” of photographic practice. That certainly is true of this exhibition. The question that cannot be answered at this time in 2026 is whether or not these, or other, artists will continue to explore the same types of work or will move into other areas. We will have to wait and see where each participant goes in their future practices. Given what Alex Robinson has referred to as limitless possibilities, each of these artists might take their practices anywhere!


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

LOVING - Photographs of men in Love, 1850s to 1950s & A loving City - Queerberra Revisited

LOVING - Photographs of men in Love, 1850s to 1950s

A loving City - Queerberra Revisited

Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG), Gallery 2 | 6 December 2025 to 5 April 2026

Whilst most certainly being complementary, these two exhibitions in adjoining spaces are also very different to each other. LOVING – Photographs of men in Love, 1850s to 1950s is, obviously, only about men. The large number of photographs in the display is essentially monochromatic.

Installation image - LOVING – Photographs of men in Love, 1850s to 1950s © Brian Rope

But, when visitors walk through into the next space to A loving City – Queerberra Revisited they will immediately see colour images hung against a background of vivid rainbow colours.

Installation image - A loving City – Queerberra Revisited © Brian Rope

The content of LOVING was created by collectors and arts professionals Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell. That married couple discovered an old photograph of two other men in a tender loving embrace at an antique store in Dallas, Texas, 25 years ago. The image sparked a passion which resulted in a global journey searching for other photographs capturing men in love. They searched flea markets, auction houses, family albums and online collections, gradually gathering from all over the world over 4,000 tender images of male couples taken between the 1850s and 1950s - 100 years of social history and the development of photography.

In 2020, they published a book internationally, showing hundreds of the previously unpublished vernacular photographs depicting romantic love between men that powerfully and movingly reasserted both that love is love and that there had always been men who loved each other. It and this exhibition tenderly portray romantic love between men. There are snapshots, portraits, and group photos taken in the most varied places and situations. Often taken when male partnerships were illegal, the collectors identified the men in the images as couples by what they have described as the unmistakable look in the eyes of two people in love, by their body language, and even by coded inscriptions. There is a diversity of image formats - ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, glass negatives, tin types, cabinet cards, photo postcards, and more.

Three years later, the collection was exhibited for the first time at the Musée Rath in Geneva. Now, it is being displayed in Australia, co-presented by CMAG and the Delegation of the European Union to Australia. The photographs on display have been digitised. They tell stories which have a considerable impact when we consider them. They speak to spirit and resilience. LOVING brings to light the lives and stories of male couples from around the world - giving voice to their courage, intimacy and enduring love for their “other halves”.

Unknown subject, Loving: Photographs of Men in Love 1850s-1950s © The Nini-Treadwell collection

Unknown subject, Loving: Photographs of Men in Love 1850s-1950s
© The Nini-Treadwell collection

Unknown subject, Loving: Photographs of Men in Love 1850s-1950s

© The Nini-Treadwell collection

The second exhibition, A Loving City: Queerberra Revisited, is a return to a 2017 portrait series - Queerberra by photographer Jane Duong and producer Victoria Firth-Smith.

Created between 2015 and 2017, in the lead-up to Australia’s same-sex marriage postal vote, the original project captured over 100 portraits of LGBTQIA+ Canberrans in their homes, workplaces and everyday spaces. Over weekends spent in bedrooms, workplaces, and on the streets, portraits of pride, exhaustion, defiance, love, and hope were captured with grace and honesty. Some subjects were already out. Others came out for the first time. This unique art project set out to portray the beauty of Canberra’s rich array of local identities from LGBTIQ, asexual and cisgender peoples, to drag queens and kings, and beyond. Everyday lives were captured and shared with pride - some had not been ‘out’ publicly, others were very much in the public eye.

On 15 November 2017, Canberra’s voters delivered Australia’s strongest "Yes" vote in support of marriage equality. The Queerberra book was launched the very next day. Eight years later, this revisiting of the book and original exhibition showcases 99 of the original 100 portraits from that book and invites audiences to consider how much things have changed in that time.

Caitlin and Jill, Queerberra - photography by Jane Duong and produced by Victoria Firth-Smith

 

James, Queerberra - photography by Jane Duong and produced by Victoria Firth-Smith

These two exhibitions are simultaneously intensely intimate and deeply political. Each one stands alone in its story and tone; together they form a larger narrative about connection across generations, time periods and other things that often divide us.

This review is also available on the author's blog. And a shorter version is on a Canberra City News webpage.

‘illuminate ’25

Visual Arts Exhibition Review – Brian Rope

‘illuminate ’25 - Friends of the Gardens Photographic Group

Australian National Botanic Gardens Visitors Centre Gallery

21 November – 14 December 2025

Exhibitions in the Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG) Visitor Centre Gallery explore the Australian environment through diverse creative forms. This annual exhibition is of photographic artworks, using light to illuminate the subjects in a variety of ways.

As always the standard of the works in this annual exhibition is high – technically and creatively eye catching. Generally, the imagery is what we expect in nature exhibitions – focussed absolutely on nature with no non-nature intrusions, fauna and flora in their natural environment, in the correct colours of the subjects, and capturing the essence of nature so highly valued by people all over the world. There are, however, a few exceptions and that is fine in my view. All the images entered in the competition associated with this event were required to have been taken in the Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG), A small number not entered in the competition did not have to be ANBG subjects; but may well also have been.

There are portraits of native plants, close-up images of Australian flowers, birds and insects, and intimate landscapes to be seen in the gardens.

This year’s judges selected two works by Pam Rooney for awards. One of them Bush Dialogue: Tracks and tunnels of the scribbly gum moth larvae won the Fauna category Award. This composite of five vertical images most successfully used selections of those wonderful scribbly patterns that we all enjoy seeing in the surfaces of gum trees. The well-balanced composition is Rooney’s own artwork created from the natural artworks that are the tracks and tunnels. Another member of the Gardens Photographic Group, Karen Neufeld, was Runner-Up in the Fauna category with her image of a masked bee, titled Bubbling Bee.

Pam Rooney – Bush Dialogue

Karin.Neufeld - Bubbling Bee

A work by Narelle Aldridge Dew drops in the desert was Highly Commended in the David Cox Memorial Award which honours and celebrate the contribution made to the Photographic Group’s activities by the late David Cox. The same artwork was also the Rangers’ Choice. The rangers at ANBG are experienced educators who specialise in bringing the stories of the Gardens to life.

Narelle Aldridge – Dew drops in the desert

Amongst the works which were “different” was Ben Harvey’s cleverly titled Banksy. The image is a black and white monochrome, so we do not see the colours of the bird perched on a banksia. But the detail in the print is excellent and provides plenty to be examined, making the artwork successful and most suitable for display in a modern home.

Ben Harvey - Banksy

A work by Mohamed Rageeb titled Through the Dragon’s Eye is most eye-catching. A close up of the dragon’s colourful eye surrounded by delightful shapes and patterns of the creature’s body surface stopped me in my tracks and commanded me to use my own eyes and look into the dragon’s.

Mohamed Rageeb - Through the Dragon’s Eye

Simone Slater’s work Seven! is another artwork most visitors will spend time with. It doesn’t take a long time to work out the title. On a Xerochrysum flowering plant native to Australia, there are variegated Adonis ladybirds. How many do you think there might be?

Simone Slater – Seven

 

Another Simone Slater piece Behind the Wire was also different. A flower in bloom, more or less framed through a section of wire fencing, completely captured my attention. I found myself wondering whether real frames might be created from wire to use instead of displaying images such as this in traditional black timber frames. Perhaps, someone reading this who has the necessary skills might like to have a go at doing what I have suggested?

This is an exhibition well worth visiting if you can - to see all the artworks, not just the ones I have shown and/or spoken about here. You would also have an opportunity to pick up some delightful Christmas gifts for friends or family whilst you are there.

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