Photography publications of the 1970s-80s: Australia and East Asia compared

Australian Centre on China in the World, the Australian National University

Date: Saturday 31 July 2021
Time: 3:30pm–5:00pm AEST

Location: Online and in-person
In-Person: Auditorium, Australian Centre on China in the World, Building 188, Fellows Lane, Canberra ACT 2601

Registration is essential

This panel takes the form of a comparative discussion about photography publications during the 1970s-80s in Australia, Taiwan, and across East Asia. What can we learn about the similar and distinct creative and social currents that fostered the printed image? contributed to the ways in which photographic art circulated in the form of photography magazines and photo books?

About the Speakers

Shuxia Chen is an art historian and curator of Asian art. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary Chinese photography, artist groups, and socialist and post-socialist visual culture. Shuxia’s research has been published in books, peer-reviewed journals, exhibition catalogues and art magazines, such as Trans Asia Photography ReviewYishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, and Artforum. Shuxia is working on two book projects: A Home for Photography Learning: the Friday Salon, 1977-1980 (Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2021), and Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature (Sydney: Power Publications, 2023). She is currently a curator at the University of Sydney Chau Chak Wing Museum, as well as a sessional lecturer at the University of New South Wales School of Art and Design and the National Art School.

Lee Wei-I is the publisher and chief editor of VOP BOOKS. Lee founded the independent magazine Voices of Photography in 2011, in Taiwan, and publishes books to promote the thinking, reading, writing and researching of photography. He also participates in judging and curating. Lee has obtained several awards at the Golden Tripod Award, the highest honour in Taiwan’s publishing industry, including Best Magazine Chief Editor Award, the Best Design Award, and the Best Humanities and Art Magazine Award. He currently lives and works in Taipei.

Martyn Jolly is an artist and a writer, who is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University School of Art and Design. His artwork is in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Canberra Museum and Gallery. Martyn’s research has been supported by major grants, including a 2014 ARC Discovery Grants (with Daniel Palmer) about the impact of new technology on the curating of Australian art photography; and a 2015 ARC Discovery Grant on the history of magic lantern slides in Australia and the world. He is the author of Faces of the Living Dead: The Belief in Spirit Photography (British Library, 2006), and in 2020, with Elisa deCourcy, he co-edited The Magic Lantern at Work: Witnessing, Persuading, Experiencing and Connecting, and co-authored Empire, Early Photography and Spectacle: the Global Career of Showman Daguerreotypist J. W. Newland, both from Routledge. His forthcoming book, co-authored with Daniel Palmer, is Installation View: Australian Photography Exhibitions 1848-2020 (Perimeter Editions).

Olivier Krischer is a historian of Asian art and visual culture interested in the creative navigation of social, political and environmental transformation. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University and an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney, where he convenes the Sydney Asian Art Series. From 2018-2020, he was Deputy and Acting Director of the University of Sydney China Studies Centre, and in 2017 was a Visiting Fellow in the Institute for Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He is the editor and author of Shades of Green: Notes on China’s Eco-civilisation (2020, edited with L. Tomba), Zhang Peili: from Painting to Video (ANU Press, 2019), ‘Asian Art Research in Australia and New Zealand: Past, Present and Future’, Australia & New Zealand Journal of Art (2016, edited with S. Whiteman), Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation Across Borders (2013, edited with F. Nakamura, M. Perkins). His curatorial projects include Wei Leng Tay: Abridge (2021); Zhang Peili: from Painting to Video (2016, co-curated with Kim Machan), Wei Leng Tay: The Other Shore (2016), and Between: Picturing 1950-60s Taiwan(2015).

The plan is host this panel discussion online and in-person. As the COVID situation remains volatile, details will be finalised and emailed by 27 July 2021.

Learn more about Wayfaring: Photography in 1970s-80s Taiwan exhibition