PHOTO is a major new biennial international festival of photography that will activate Melbourne and sites across regional Victoria with the most inspiring photography from Australia and around the world.
MGA’s headlining Photo 2021 exhibition will explore the festival’s theme of ‘Truth’ through the lens of new documentary photography.
Not standing still: new approaches in documentary photography, will introduce Australian audiences to leading photographers from around the world who are making new documentary photography, many never having exhibited in Australia before. This exhibition will place Australian photographers alongside their international contemporaries; spanning 11 countries of origin, these are the photographers who are changing the way we think about photographic storytelling.
Truth is implicitly linked to photography because of its capacity to be a medium of record, but photographers have been using their tools to uncover and reimagine truths through investigative, imaginative and allusive photography.
New documentary photography is about rethinking the traditional ways of representing what the camera sees. Instead of straight documentation, these photographers have sought new ways to show pressing social and political issues, and in doing so are transforming photography itself.