On a wild, wet AFL Grand Final day I did my best to cover some large ground and view the exhibitions on offer in the varied photographic program of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. Luckily, I know the terrain as I live in Central Victoria and could create a loop through Creswick, Ballarat and back to Smeaton. Unfortunately, some venues such as Anderson’s Mill were closed by the time I made it, but in the cosy Smeaton pub I caught some nail biting last minutes of the unfortunate demise of St Kilda in the Grand Final.

I am impressed with the growth of the Biennale from its origins as the Daylesford Foto Biennales of 2005 and 2007 and its new relationship with Ballarat, as I am all to familiar with the difficulties that are inherent in mounting visual arts events in regional areas, where venues for art are difficult to locate, or difficult to stage such events in. This Biennale found some really interesting places to stage the works, including a train station parcel loft, the mining exchange and knitting mills. Some locations were more successful than others, but all were the result of a huge effort. Staging a festival based entirely of visual arts is also a difficult thing to fund. With no door costs or ticket sales to cover overheads, funding support, sponsorships, volunteers and in kind assistance are all needed on a large scale. Credit is therefore due to the organisers and partners who have pulled this event together.

The Biennale featured a diverse mix of photographic work across a core and fringe exhibition program, ranging from the fashion photography of Bruno Benini to pin hole photography installations. In general, the works that captivated me were those that showed sensitivity to their subject and an experimental approach to the photographic medium. In this regard, I found Konrad Winkler’s work most striking in its sensitive representation of a subject we are all likely to encounter, the loss of a beloved partner or family member.

Winkler’s suite of works titled Leila: Losing Frank allows the viewer to empathise with Leila as she undergoes life transformations following the loss of her husband. Winkler handles the fragility of his subject matter and its emotional content well, focusing not on moments of crisis, but quiet moments of loss experienced over time. The work uses odd angles, abstract foregrounding and varied focal techniques to record Leila’s five-year journey with a beautiful and articulate sensitivity.

Julie Millowick
Water Flows Down the Fryers Creek for the First Time in Ten Years 2007
digitally stitched panorama on archival silver rag paper
100 x600 cm
courtesy the artist

Julie Millowick has a long history as a photojournalist who has recorded local people and places. The premise of her show Close to Home at the Gold Museum, Ballarat is that one doesn’t have to look far to find a subject. This has allowed her, over several years, to create an archive of the community of Fryerstown, where people have built their lives on the landscape relics left after the Victorian gold rush. (I declare a close relationship to this subject as a resident of Fryerstown). I was pleased to see this work alongside Millowick’s recent work depicting the scrubby landscape of the area in moments of transformation. Both beautiful and desolate, when the mist comes or the water fills the empty creek, this landscape takes on ethereal qualities. It’s these moments that Millowick has captured, digitally knitting together a number of frames to create photographic panoramas.

A fantastic surprise in the strangest of places was the work of third year photography student Amina Perona. I especially made my way into the downstairs lobby of the Forest Resort in Creswick to see Fact or Fiction?, a group exhibition of work by Bendigo La Trobe University photography students, as the work of emerging artists can often be as stimulating as that of the professionals. At the time of my visit, the tension of the Grand Final last quarter was palpable upstairs in the bar, but down in the lobby the mood was entirely different. It was here I encountered Perona’s humorous suite of works titled The Lost Vermeers, which make a direct correlation between his paintings and contemporary culture. Perona’s appropriation is direct but astute.

Bindi Cole
Wild Foxy 2008
pigment print on rag paper
120 x 90 cm
courtesy the artist and Nellie Castan

Unexpected Who We Are was a group exhibition at Kirribit Gallery in Ballarat, which featured a range of works exploring representations of indigenous female identity. Unfortunately I could not view the entire exhibition, as the venue had closed at the time of my visit, but I look forward to seeing more work from Dianne Jones, Bindi Cole and Gayle Maddigan. In contrast, the work of Wayne Quilliam at The Mining Exchange in Ballarat was unfortunately a very clichéd representation of female identity and representations of nature that was very commercial in appearance. His large inclusion in the core program and Biennale catalogue and the programming of the Kirribit’s exhibition as a fringe event was, in my opinion, a shame.

If St Kilda are still trying to nail the Grand Final the next time the Biennale is on I will make sure I go the following week. If you are not a footy fan, be sure to take your time and plot a lovely course. Stop at the Trentham Bakery, Anderson Mill, the Smeaton pub and other interesting venues. And be sure to look at the whole Biennale catalogue as the exhibitions of note are not always those of the international artists or in the core program, they are often the works of artists who simply have a sharp notion of the possibilities of the medium and an affinity with their subject.

Ballarat International Foto Biennale
4 September – 4 October 2009
Various venues in Ballarat and Central Victoria