Categories: General
      Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2018
     Title: IN ANNA'S GARDEN: Australian practitioners celebrating World Cyanotype Day 2018
Monash Gallery of Art the Australian home of photography
860 Ferntree Gully Road, Wheelers Hill, VIC 3150

Launch: 2-4pm Saturday 15 September 2018
THE ATRIUM MGA. FREE
Register

Exhibition dates: 11 September - 21 October 2018

This exhibition has been developed by artists Doug Spowart + Vicky Cooper with support from MGA.
Image: COOPER and SPOWART, details:


As part of the launch visitors will be able to contribute to a collective installation of cyanotypes. Please bring along a small object to use in the creation of your cyanotype*.

This exhibition aims to provide a glimpse into the rich community in Australia that exists around the cyanotype process. In Anna’s Garden provides an opportunity for cyanotypists to come together and share their work, and to educate the broader community about this historical process that has captured the blue hearts of contemporary artists.

Exhibition video by Doug Spowart:



About the cyanotype process & World Cyanotype Day
Invented by British polymath Sir John Herschel in 1842, the cyanotype process contributed to two major moments in photography, the publication of the first photographically illustrated book (in essence, the first photobook) Anna Atkins's British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843-1853) and also its commercial application as a quick and simple copying process, the blueprint, which was in common useage for much of the 20th century. Since the 1960s artists around the world have been exploring the cyanotype as part of renewed interest in alternative photographic processes.

World Cyanotype Day has been acknowledged since 2015 as an annual celebration of the cyanotype process. The 2018 event falls on 29 September and sees "photographers and artists worldwide gathering in backyards, parking lots, galleries and parks to connect, create and celebrate this antiquarian photographic process."

Cyanotype Masterclass
In addition to the exhibition, MGA will also host a Masterclass workshop with Doug Spowart + Vicky Cooper. Sunday 16 September, 10am-3.30pm at MGA

Join Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper - artists, teachers, researchers and all around champions of the photobook and the photographic arts in Australia - for a unique masterclass that will extend your use of the cyanotype process to encompass narratives and storytelling. In this masterclass Spowart + Cooper will provide an introduction to their materials, tools and practices they use for their unique cyanotype work. Participants will create cyanotype narratives in the form of simple handmade books including the 8-page fold and concertina book formats. Participants will also experiment with sample images using rice paper and some textile materials to gain an understanding of alternate materials.

Further workshop details and tickets can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/masterclass-expanding-cyanotypes-with-vicky-cooper-and-doug-spowart-tickets-49463727340

Artwork above:
Victoria COOPER and Doug SPOWART
Australian Banquet, January 25/26 1788 2010
double-sided broadsheet cyanotype in rice paper 37.6x78.4cm
A unique-state artist book consisting of 7 variants.