Babel Island from the series The Moonbird People 1985–88
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Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra 2009 Australia
Anthol Burgess. Black and white gelatin silver print. 35 x 45 cm. Courtesy Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
Ricky Maynard
Portrait of a Distant Land
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA)
Thursday 04 June 2009 to Sunday 23 August 2009
Exhibition
previously on
at
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA)
in
Sydney precinct,
New South Wales,
Australia
Ricky Maynard is a documentary photographer based on Flinders Island in the Bass Strait, between Tasmania and mainland Australia. The artist is the focus of an exhibition titled Portrait of a Distant Land which comprises a selection of sixty images from six bodies of work developed over more than two decades of practice.
The series are The Moonbird People (1985-88), No More Than What You See (1993), Urban Diary (1997), In The Footsteps Of Others (2003), Returning To Places That Name Us (2000) and his latest and on-going series, Portrait of a Distant Land (2005– ).
The MCA first presented images from Maynard’s series Portrait of a Distant Land in 2005. The series consists of photographs of Tasmania’s physical and social landscapes, following song lines and ochre trails, tribal movements and historical displacement routes, creating a form of visual diary derived from collective oral histories. The deeply personal project records cultural and historical sites significant to Maynard’s people, the Ben Lomond and Cape Portland peoples of Tasmania.
This exhibition was first presented in 2007 at the Australian Embassy in Paris as part of the inaugural Photoquai Biennale of World Images organised by the Musee du quai Branly. Since then, the exhibition has toured throughout Australia and the Pacific region.
Revealing Moments in Time
Presented concurrently to Portrait of Distant Land, Ricky Maynard has selected work by leading documentary photographers who have influenced his own professional practice. This exhibition includes work by Mary Ellen Mark whose confronting and direct images changed social attitudes, as well as members of the f/64 group of west coast American photographers such as Edward Weston who introduced a new aesthetic in photography.
Location
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA)140 George Street, The Rocks, Sydney Harbour foreshore at West Circular Quay
The Rocks Precinct
New South Wales
Australia
