NEW PHOTOGRAPHS FROM KOKWARA TRAIL

26 March – 8 May 2010

In 2009, Brisbane-based artist Eric Bridgeman travelled through remote parts of the Chimbu (Simbu) Province, his mother’s country in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. As he was born in Australia, Bridgeman became increasingly conscious of his own ‘white’ Australian presence, and began to recognise the impact of photography on representations of national and cultural identity in PNG.

In this body of work, Bridgeman questions the methods of photographic capture of images of the land and indigenous people from PNG during the 20^th century till now  – from Irving Penn to National Geographic. New Photographs From Kokwara Trail are smart, witty and irreverent, creating alternative scenarios and archetypes resisting the ethnographic convention that aide in the promotion and consumption of PNG as Australia’s next frontier.

Eric Bridgeman New Photographs from Kokwara Trail has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, it’s arts funding and advisory body.