PHOTODUST is an independent art and photography organisation based in Melbourne, Australia.
We are a not-for-profit Asia-Pacific curation project. Our aim is to engage and encourage collaboration between artists, for the production and publication of photographic and lens-based art.
PHOTODUST aims to establish a unique perspective toward visual culture. For this purpose, we are constantly searching for artworks that involve the use of photography and related processes.
The rules are simple: all photographic and lens-based works will be considered. Our only requirement is that the work should be produced by artists born or based in the Asia-Pacific region.
CURATORS:
In alphabetical order.
Andrew McLaughlin
Ariel Cameron
Bella Li
Christine McFetridge
Chris Parkinson
Dan Sibley
Lisa Bow
Mauricio Rivera
Mike Read
Sudeep Lingamneni
CONTRIBUTORS:
(Featured)
Andrew Brown (F)
Andrew McLaughlin (F)
Bella Li (F)
Charlie Kinross (F)
Chris Parkinson (F)
Christine McFetridge (F)
Claire Capel-Stanley (F)
Dan Sibley (F)
Dianne Reid (F)
Dwi Asrul Fajar (F)
Erin Baker (F)
Georgina Campbell (F)
Ilona Nelson (F)
Jacqueline Felstead (F)
Jessye Wdowin-Mcgregor (F)
Jimmy Langer (F)
Jody Haines (F)
Jordan Madge (F)
Justyn Koh (F)
Karolina Nowosielska Solevag (F)
Leanora Olmi (F)
Lisa Bow (F)
Madeline Bishop (F)
Marcelle Bradbeer (F)
Mary Macpherson (F)
Mauricio Rivera (F)
Melinda Smith (F)
Mike Read (F)
Natasha Cantwell (F)
Nikki Lam (F)
Paige Townsend (F)
Pia Johnson (F)
Renee Stamatova (F)
Richard Butler-Bowdon (F)
Robert Musgrave (F)
Shen Wei (F)
Simone Darcy (F)
Sonya Louise (F)
Sudeep Lingamneni (F)
Tiffaney Bishop (F)
Travis Fryer (F)
EDITORS:
Bella Li
Chris Parkinson
Christine McFetridge
Mauricio Rivera
PARTNERSHIPS:
Photodust has a collaborative series with Peril (http://peril.com.au), an online magazine focused on issues of Asian-Australian arts and culture. Peril’s mission is to be a platform for Asian-Australian voices that empowers the creativity, agency and representation of Asian-Australian people in arts, society and culture.
Ownership of intellectual property rights (i.e. copyright and any other intellectual property rights) of the material published in this website, unless otherwise noted, belongs to PHOTODUST. All rights reserved.
By submitting work to PHOTODUST, you are confirming that you own the copyright to this work or have permission from the copyright holder to submit it. You are granting PHOTODUST a non-exclusive licence to use the work in its submitted form, for publication on the PHOTODUST website for as long as the website exists and to include in any publication (both digital or in print) that PHOTODUST may produce in the future.
CREATIVE COMMONS LICENCE:
This website is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence.
A licence is a standard form licence agreement that allows you to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt this publication provided that you attribute the work.
Their preference is that you attribute this publication (and any material sourced from it) using the following wording:
Source: Licenced from PHOTODUST under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence.
As a way of describing the countries in which these photographs were taken, I have used the contemporary acronym W.E.I.R.D. (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic) and negated it.
The images presented here are a mixed suite of photographs from random places at disparate times. Most of these belong to the street photography genre, where the photographer works incognito, but some—such as the portraits of Cambodian youth I took in 2010, while working with an Australian-based charity—are more direct and confrontational.
In most non-Western countries, being a white man with a camera already puts you into loaded situations, but there have been some places where street photography was completely out of the question, such as Somalia, Mauritania and Pakistan (I was there during the U.S. bombing of Iraq in 2003).
I am African by birth and maintain links with people on that continent, which is the antithesis of W.E.I.R.D. India, where I once spent five weeks, while studying Hindi/Urdu to complete an Asian-languages degree, is another place I find fascinating. Despite being the world’s biggest democracy, it’s definitely also non-W.E.I.R.D.
The ubiquity of satellite dishes and mobile phones is a persistent motif in my images. It is a disquieting fact that more people in the world have easy access to mobile phones than to clean drinking water.
The black-and-white photographs from Sudan were taken with a Leica while I was working as a teacher for the Sudanese Education Ministry. The colour photographs were taken with a fixed-focal-length 28mm Ricoh camera, using C-41 and E6 film formats.
Images are from Richard Butler-Bowdon’s self-published book: ‘Images From The Non-W.E.I.R.D.’ (2013).
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