Exploring the impact of colonialism on Australia’s Indigenous communities

Photography’s arrival in the mid-nineteenth century ran parallel to, if not part and parcel of, the explosion of European colonisation sweeping across the Global South. Photographers arrived on foreign lands, casting indigenous people as objects of propaganda and myth to legitimise conquest, dominion, and subjugation of ancient cultures in service of Western hegemony.

The new exhibition, Under a Southern Star: Identity and Environment in Australian Photography, begins here, exploring the camera’s arrival on the continent as a tool of objectification with the work of John William Lindt (1845−1926). He transformed his studio into an exotic handpainted reproductions of the natural Bushlands, then cast Aboriginal Australians to play themselves in these artificial scenes of ​“native life.” 

“Lindt’s photographs raise ethical issues, including misrepresentation and the perpetuation of stereotypes that reflected European romanticised notions an could distort the true complexities of Indigenous cultures,” says co-curator Graham Howe, founder and CEO, Curatorial Exhibitions.

Under a Southern Star uses Lindt’s images as the departure point from which Australian photography emerged and evolved over the past two centuries. Featuring the work of 19 artists including Tracey Moffatt, Ricky Maynard, Tobias Titz, and Max Dupain the exhibition aims to illuminate Western and Aboriginal traditions and the dialogues they have shared, to integrate the nation’s layered, if not stratified, photography history.

Exploring themes of identity and belonging while navigating the harrowing realities of climate change, Under a Southern Star challenges cultural biases embedded in photography and spoon fed through media, entertainment, history, and art as ​“fact” and ​“truth.”

With her 2022 series Guilty Not Guilty, Vee Speers presents mug shots of petty criminals to confront the stigma of criminality in a nation that began as a penal colony for the British empire.

“The conditions in this new colony were so draconian that the transported criminals were transformed into one of the most law-abiding societies in the world,” says Howe. ​“Thus, the notion of Australia as being primarily populated by ruthless convicts was an inversion of the reality.”

As Aboriginal Australian artists like Tracey Moffatt came to the fore during the 1980s, photography became a tool of self expression, subversion, and liberation from neocolonial perspectives and practices that had dominated the medium far too long.

“This decolonisation of photography challenges traditional norms about who captures images, the subjects of these images, and the intended audiences,” says Howe. ​“By addressing issues such as land rights and social injustice, these photographers are not only raising awareness but also engaging in activism.”

In more recent years, Anne Zahalka has been using photography to confront the ravages of climate change on the landscape, revealing the degrading impact of Western development practices on the environment via industrialization, urbanization, and tourism.

Zahalka’s work challenges the Western obsession with the ​“exotic” that reduces ancient cultures to mere stereotype, revealing the inherently destructive nature of the colonial mindset and replacing it with an authentic connection with the earth.

Howe explains, ​“Her work encourages a reflective reconsideration of our perceptions of place and the broader implications of cultural hegemony on both nature and its indigenous custodians.”

Under a Southern Star: Identity and Environment in Australian Photography on view through January 5 2025 at Hullfish Gallery at the Princeton University Art Museum in Princeton, New Jersey.

The exhibition is curated by Deborah Klochko, former executive director and chief curator, Museum of Photographic Arts at San Diego Museum of Art; and Graham Howe, founder and CEO, Curatorial Exhibitions; with Ashley Lumb, independent curator.