Re-Take: Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Photography

About the exhibition
Re-take was one of the first exhibitions in Australia to survey contemporary Indigenous photography, showcasing the work of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lens-based artists from the 1960s through to the ’90s. Featuring over fifty works, the exhibition spanned early documentary tradition, community-based projects and contemporary photomedia practice.

The exhibition foregrounded political issues such as the history of European occupation in Australia, Aboriginal sovereignty and the power dynamics of photographic representation.

As described in the education materials accompanying the exhibition:

'Aboriginal people have been photographed since the invention of the camera. These early images were viewed as records of ‘a curious people’—photographs of a supposedly dying race, who were also ‘captured’ or ‘shot’ by the camera for ‘scientific’ purposes. It was not until the 1980s, however, that Aboriginal photographers assumed a prominent position in both the Australian and international art scene. Taking the camera into their own hands, these artists re-take, re-present, re-claim, and largely re-configure photographic representations of Aboriginality.'

MUMA Online Exhibition Archive
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^{Image: r e a, Look Who's Calling the Kettle Black 1992, from a series of ten dye-sublimation prints, 20.3 x 25.3 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Purchased 1998}