Current Season Current Exhibitions Current Events Video Lounge Future Exhibitions Past Exhibitions Touring Exhibitions News Catalogues Online Projects How to propose an exhibition Exhibitions for Hire 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 Vulgo 29 October - 21 November, 1999 Tue - Sun: 11.00am - 6.00pm Gallery One Rosângela Rennó Curated by Melissa Chiu If photography has been a way to reveal the world and reflect our dreams, it has also been an instrument of control and classification. The starting point for Rosângela Rennó's VULGO is a dusty and forgotten collection of glass negatives unearthed from the Identification and Psychiatry Department of São Paulo State Penitentiary. These strange images, which meticulously record the pattern and swirl of hair on top of each prisoner's head, have been rendered more strangely beautiful, more chillingly ambiguous through Rennó's subtle interplay of colour and text. And what is at stake here is identity itself. Not the individual identity of each faceless subject, but the very systems and machinery of identification. Rosângela Rennó is one of Brazil's most celebrated photo-artists to emerge on the international scene in recent years. She is currently Visiting Fellow at the School of Contemporary Arts at the University of Western Sydney Nepean. Image Credits: •  Rosângela Rennó, Vulgo, 1998 Conversation-Inside/Outside Gallery Two James Drake They don't understand people like us... Joy, passion, longing, frustration and anger: this is the emotional sweep to which James Drake's installation bears witness. It documents an intimate conversation between an inmate in his cell and his lover on the street outside the El Paso jail, giving a complex vision of a new language invented out of necessity. As with Rosângela Rennó's work in Gallery One, James Drake combines image and text to create a powerful and complex evocation of concerns surrounding incarceration. But here the work documents the will to personal expression rather than classification. James Drake has exhibited extensively in USA and Central America. This exhibition marks his first showing in Australia. Conversation - Inside/Outside is presented courtesy of Pamela Auchincloss, New York. Image Credits: •  James Drake, Conversation - Inside/Outside, 1998 Children of Prisoners Foyer Vahid Vahed For the past 10 years the Children of Prisoners Support Group have been lobbying for Children's rights and welfare after the LAW has sentenced their parents for various crimes. Eventually in 1998, their proposal for an educational package (written manual and video) for relevant organisations and schools in NSW was accepted by Western Sydney Area Assistance Scheme. Since Auburn Community Development Network had dealt with the budgeting of this proposal, it decided to produce the video as well. I was appointed as the director and writer of this educational video. I had to spend 6 months with the children whose parents were in custody. I needed to know about the subject matter from the children's perspective and resisted misrepresenting them and their situations. The workshops were prepared by CPSG and two workers accompanied me during my research. The result was terrifying. All children of prisoners had horror stories to tell which brough me to a colder and sadder realization of their reality. We documented the workshops and extracted some stories which now are depicted in the dramatisation of these events in the 'Children of Prisoners' video. All of these events and characters are dramatized in order to avoid reinforcing the notion of documentary as the genre/tool to tell the 'truth'. Image Credits: •  CPSG video still from Children of Prisoners, 1999 Terms and Conditions | © Copyright: Australian Centre for Photography, 2008. All Rights Reserved. Site by Suture Net | Hosting by Dreamhost