Queer PHOTO is shaping the future

Queer PHOTO, the brand new photography festival presented by Midsumma and PHOTO 2024, has taken over Melbourne’s West and transformed its various locations into a vibrant expression of LGBTQIA+ culture. The program features 17 artists, 14 exhibitions, 30 interactive events and 7 locations across Footscray, Newport and Werribee, all responding to the theme ‘The Future Is Shaped by Those Who Can See It’.

PHOTO 2024 Curator Brendan McCleary says: “Taking place across galleries, parks, and an historic mansion in Melbourne’s west, Queer PHOTO celebrates 17 LGBTQIA+ artists, each in their own way using queer thinking to consider potential scenarios that lie ahead, and how current actions and activisms are creating future realities—from advances in technology, through to responding to climate crisis, and connecting with Indigenous ways of thinking. There is a beautiful community found within these works, highlighting the incredible ways in which queer voices are shaping a better tomorrow.”

The program includes:

At Footscray Community Arts:

-Black & Blur by Lilah Benetti

-The Zizi Show by Jake Elwes

-Like A River by Daniel Jack Lyons

-Orange Grove by Clifford Prince King

-Marungka Tjalatjunu (Dipped in Black) by Matthew Thorne and Derik Lynch

-Exquisite Corpse by Salote Tawale

At The Outside Gallery, Footscray:

-So’otaga (Connection) by Leilani Fuimaono

At Trocadero Art Space, Footscray:

-SURFACING

At Substation, Newport:

-TBWWWTB (To Be What We Want To Be) by Vic Bakin

-Alteration by FAFSWAG

At Wyndham Art Gallery, Werribee:

-The New Pre-Raphaelites by Sunil Gupta

At Werribee Train Station:

-Affirm by Peter Waples-Crowe

At Werribee Park Mansion:

-To See or Not to See by Karla Dickens

Karla Dickens, Looking at you VI, 2017, Inkjet print, 100 x 100 cm. Edition 3 or 60 x 60 cm.

Salote Tawale, YOU, ME, ME, YOU (still), 2022. Courtesy the artist, Ikon, Birmingham and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

Leilani Fuimaono, Pauline High Priestess, 2017. Courtesy the artist.

Jake Elwes, Zizi – Queering the Dataset, 2019. Courtesy the artist.

Daniel Jack Lyons, Wendel In Drag, from the series Like A River, 2019. Courtesy the artist.

Clifford Prince King, Untitled, (m _ q), 2017. Courtesy the artist, Gordon Robichaux, NY and STARS, LA.

Vic Bakin, from the series TBWWWTB (To Be What We Want To Be), 2023. Courtesy the artist.

Sunil Gupta, Untitled #11 from the series The New Pre-Raphaelites, 2008. Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery. © Sunil Gupta. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2021.

Asafe Ghalib, Queer Immigrants.

Queer PHOTO
Various locations
7 January—24 March