Centre for
Contemporary
Photography
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About CCP
Established in 1986 by the photographic community as a not-for-profit exhibition and resource centre, CCP has played a pivotal role in the support of photo-based arts and public engagement with photography.
Through exhibitions, education and publishing, Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) places contemporary Australian photography and video in conversation with significant historical and international practice, expanding the context for current Australian lens-based arts.
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Director, Daniel – Boetker Smith (full time)
Curator, Catlin Langford (part time)
Gallery Manager, Tyler Meredith (part time)
Gallery Assistant, Sebastian Kainey (casual)
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Exhibition Program
Only the future revisits the past
March 1 – 12 May, 2024
Marta Bogdańska (PL), Omar Victor Diop (SN), Nikki Lam (AU/HK), Tace Stevens (Noongar/Spinifex/AU), and Stephanie Syjuco (US)
It is well established that photography and film record the past, but these types of documents can also transform and dictate the future.
Only the future revisits the past brings together artists Marta Bogdańska, Omar Victor Diop, Nikki Lam, Tace Stevens and Stephanie Syjuco whose works look towards the past—via archives, institutional and museum collections, family histories, and historic depictions—to speculate future states and possibilities. Through deep engagement and considered intervention, these artists disrupt received structures and narratives. In doing so, they explore ideas of agency and the limitations of representation.
This exhibition questions the formulation of accepted knowledge and accounts, and asks: what role does memory and history play in forming our futures?
Resources
Artist Biographies
Marta Bogdańska is a Polish visual artist, photographer, filmmaker, and cultural manager based in Poland. She lived & worked in Lebanon for 8 years. Marta holds an MA in Philosophy and Diploma in Gender Studies from Warsaw University. She studied with Anton Vidokle and Jalal Toufic at Homeworkspace Programme of Ashkal Alwan association in Beirut. Graduated from Academy of Photography in Warsaw. Attended ‘The School of Looking’ at the Institute of Photography Fort and Open Institute at Powszechny Theater in Warsaw.
Omar Victor Diop is a Senegalese artist based between Paris and Dakar. Developing an interest in photography at an early age, his work is distinguished by a combination of visual art, fashion and portraiture. With a particular focus on developing a dialogue between the future and the past the series Diaspora re-enacts portraits of African notables who have marked history. Graduating from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris, Diop features in several significant collections worldwide and was a featured artist at Paris Photo 2023.
Nikki Lam is an artist-curator based in Narrm (Melbourne, Australia). Working primarily with moving image and text, her work explores memory through the contemplation on time, space and impermanence. Born in Hong Kong, Nikki’s practice deals with the complexity of migration, diaspora and the subjective/collective histories, often through poetry, translation, fragmentation, destruction and re-generation.
Tace Stevens is a Noongar and Spinifex woman from Western Australia. She is a documentary photographer and emerging filmmaker based in Sydney. In 2022, Tace received a grant from the Magnum Foundation and the World Monument Fund. Over a ten-month period, she worked with the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation, documenting the Survivors stories, through audio and photography.
Stephanie Syjuco is a filipino born artist, based in the United States. She works in photography, sculpture, and installation, moving from handmade and craft-inspired mediums to digital editing and archive excavations. Recently, she has focused on how photography and image-based processes are implicated in the construction of radicalised, exclusionary narratives of history and citizenship. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and has exhibited widely, including at The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others. She is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and resides in Oakland, California.