NZ Visual Diary - entry 220
Ballarat International Foto Biennale
The Ballarat International Foto Biennale is Australia’s most prestigious photography festival, and its reputation extends far beyond those borders. Along with my desire to visit nearby Melbourne, a city routinely voted the most liveable city on the planet, I have wished to attend the Ballarat biennale for many, many years.
An email blast from the festival’s organisers the other month reminded me that it was time to act on a longing. Randolph and I just returned from a long weekend in Melbourne and at the foto biennale. Australia being NZ’s dear sibling (rivalries included), it seems fit and proper to include an entry or two in my blog on our trip.
First, the Ballarat Biennale. The festival’s programme was rich and diverse. Headliners included the celebrated portrait photographer Platon, whose show ‘People Power’ was phenomenal. The Platon Studio show was mounted in the Art Gallery of Ballarat, a building of extraordinary beauty. Like the Art Gallery, the city-centre architecture of Ballarat bears witness to the fruits of a fortuitous intersection of wealth and civic capacity. Ballarat was founded as a gold rush town of mid-19th century Australia. Applying some of that wealth to civic endeavour, the visionary leaders of the city built the Art Gallery of Ballarat, which remains the oldest purpose-built regional art gallery in Australia. The filigree ornamentation at the entrance to Art Space nicely illustrates the confluence of histories: gold rush wealth and civic aesthetic.
The Mining Exchange Building hosted my favourite show How to Fly, photographs by the Swedish photographer Erik Johansson. Self-described as ‘surreal photography,’ Johansson’s images playfully suggest what the Dutch illustrator M.C. Escher might have produced had he been a photographer. My favourite image of the exhibit was an unauthorised entry of a beautiful woman (my wife) held in partial frame found in the lower right corner of the Mining Exchange Building photograph above.
Of the many outdoor exhibits, the golden monkey was a festival favourite.
Finally, the Ballarat Town Hall was home to the festival’s portrait competition.