In the Press
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Russh
Australian photographers are donating their work to raise funds for civilians in Gaza
“Every time we go online or read the news, we encounter evidence of unthinkable human suffering. Entire generations of Palestinian families have been wiped out, WCNSF is a new acronym being used in Gazan hospitals as a shorthand for wounded children with no surviving family, and in Tel Aviv, thousands turned out to a recent 24-hour rally demanding that Israeli hostages are safely returned home.
As Israel's war on Gaza surpasses 100 days, 31 Australian photographers from Agender collective are joining forces to raise funds for the emergency efforts of Médecins Sans Frontières and Save the Children. “
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The Guardian
Women battling sexism in photography – a picture essay
“Today the majority of students in undergraduate and graduate photojournalism programs are women. Yet between 2012 and 2017, women made up just 15% of entries to the World Press Photo awards, according to the New York Times. A survey of major talent agency websites in Australia and their roster reveals that under 25% of agency-represented photographers are female.
This affects what we see on our front pages and billboards. In the US, as revealed in a TEDx talk by the celebrated photographer Jill Greenberg, 92% of adverts are shot by men, as are 85% of magazine covers. (This despite the fact that 85% of consumer purchases are made by women)…
…Malinowski, for one, believes that female photography is critical to leading a shift away from the male gaze, creating “a whole new visual language and in turn visual identity for women (and men)”. It is desperately needed: as Jill Greenberg put it bluntly in her TEDx talk, “nearly every image we are surrounded by has been filtered through a man’s eye”. “
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Russh
Through the eyes of women: Agender and International Women’s Day
"I do this, I endure this, I want this . . . because I am a woman. I do that, I endure that, I want that . . . even though I’m a woman. Because of the mandated inferiority of women, their condition as a cultural minority, there continues to be a debate about what women are, can be, should want to be." - Susan Sontag.
…Agender presents Balance for Better, an exhibition the work of 22 talented women and show the world through the female lens. The works will highlight the difference in sexual perspectives as well as the ongoing reality of unequal pay and rights for women internationally. This collective of women aim not just to explore, but to adjust the imbalance by donating 50 per cent of all profits from the show to the Sydney Women’s Fund.”
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Capture Mag
Photographs for Peace: 31 leading female photographers unite for humanitarian impact
“The initiative, beyond fundraising, seeks to foster solidarity and shared responsibility in a time of overwhelming hopelessness and helplessness.
“We live in such a content heavy world, and it can feel tough to constantly produce image/content that is not helping or saving any lives,” says Emily May Gunawan, a participating artist.
“The war in Gaza is harrowing. Every day, people are putting their lives on the line to save others. I hope that our work as photographers and artists can contribute, even in some small way, to two organisations that are working tirelessly on the front lines.” says photographer Alex Vaughan.”
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Elle
Make #IWD2019 Plans To Check Out Some Super-Cool Female Art
“WHAT CAN PEOPLE EXPECT FROM THE EXHIBITION?
LIZ: The work in the show this year is incredibly diverse, from documentary imagery to landscapes, nudes and portraits to still life and birds… the link between all of the works however is a sensitivity that comes from the female gaze itself.
ANGELA: The public will have the rare opportunity to see personal and creative work from 22 of the most notable advertising, fine art, fashion and travel photographers in Australia; who also happen be women. In the lead-up to the exhibition, we asked each of the seven artists who exhibited in Agender's 2018 show to reach out to women who they felt would want to join the Agender family; either their own heroes in the industry, icons they had looked up to for years, contemporaries whose work they admire and respect, or up-and-comers with amazing trajectories. That's how seven became 22.”
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Urban List
Fire Up For This Exhibition Of 22 Incredible Female Photographers
“With 15 years of experience in the music, fashion and commercial photography industry under her belt, Cybele Malinowski was tired both of women’s treatment and their representation.
Upon picking up a “women’s issue” of the latest glossy magazine, she was troubled by the teenage girl that brandished the cover and then, turning the pages, that “every single editorial in the magazine was photographed by men, and yet all of the models were women.
It was that moment that was the catalyst for an exhibition that tackles the boundaries and paradigms that women come across within photography: enter Agender, an annual exhibition celebrating Australia’s most successful and talented female photographers.”
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The Interiors Addict
Help raise funds for Gaza by investing in affordable art prints
“Responding to the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Photographs for Peace aims to raise funds for the emergency efforts of the two well known organisations dedicated to saving lives and providing essential support for children and their caregivers.
33 Australian female artists are taking part – both prominent and emerging – spanning the worlds of fine art, travel, and documentary photography, and their prints ordinarily range in price from $200 to $7,000. Among them are photographers who have exhibited at The Museum of Contemporary Art and the National Portrait Gallery, as well as established photojournalists and commercial photographers, whose personal work is rarely, if ever, available to the public for purchase.”
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Women's Agenda
“She is passionate about how the female body is portrayed in fashion photography and has witnessed first hand the gender diversity issues rife within the industry. After spending 10 years as an assistant to male fashion photographers, she had watched them define what female beauty is for the rest of the world and became fed up.
“Observing how social media and fashion had a role to play in women’s inner dialogue around body image, I realised I could play a positive role in healing the industry from within,” she says in the below Q&A.
Lorrimer is part of Agender’s upcoming exhibition Balance for Better, which will showcase 22 of Australia’s talented female photographers. The exhibition is based on the 2019 International Women’s Day theme #balanceforbetter and will celebrate the wealth of female talent in the industry.”
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Savage Thrills
Sydney’s Agender exhibition features many leading female photographers from Australia
“Back to the female gaze. By definition, it describes how women look and what they see. Why is it important to consider this? Well, according to The Female Gaze: Women as Viewers in Popular Culture, “In most popular representations it seems that men look and women are looked at. In film, on television, in the press and in most popular narratives men are shown to be in control of the gaze and women are controlled by it. Men act; women are acted upon. This is patriarchy.”
So, if we’ve lived under a patriarchal system, it follows that we’ve been affected by its ways of seeing. Exhibitions like Agender are seeking to change this. The figures featured in these photographs are of all different shapes, sizes, and colours. In one of the show’s most striking pieces, Cara O’Dowd photographs a series of naked female bodies painted in dissimilar shades of pink in We Are Women with the eldest of the group a stark cherry colour – as is exemplifying this point. The bodies O’Dowd has chosen to show are positioned very close together as if they are one, yet they are not the same.”