Anne Ferran White Against Red

13 October –
10 November 2018

Anne Ferran’s new exhibition White Against Red originated during a residency on Suomenlinna, Finland, a fortified island with a history of military conflict. The formats chosen for two elements of the exhibition – large-scale banners and wall-mounted plates – are those used to officially commemorate and memorialise events. By contrast, a third component of the exhibition makes direct reference to a suppressed episode of the island’s past and is only accessible via a private viewing.

In the artwork White Against Red, Ferran collaborated with Finnish dancer and choreographer Ervi Sirén to produce a series of large-scale digital prints on canvas. These banners continue the artist’s practice of photographing female performers as they improvise with lengths of coloured felt. This collaboration evolved in ways not expected by Ferran at the outset, as the performance of Sirén, a dancer then her 60s, allowed for complex and nuanced interpretations. The accompanying series of plates, Red Against White, is a re-interpretation of the photographs of Sirén into bold and minimal forms. This series was inspired by a small group of porcelain plates Ferran encountered at the Hermitage Museum.

Open Book unites photographs of the dancer with photographic details from archival images of prison camps once located on Suomenlinna. This format offers the opportunity to view multiple images at once, revealing sympathetic resonances that occur between the bodies photographed a century ago and the dancer’s performing body.

Selected solo exhibitions

Flying Colour, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2016; Shadow Land, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth and touring nationally, 2014-16; Box of Birds, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Body of water, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2013; Songbirds are Everywhere,Stills Gallery, Sydney, 2011; CANAL, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 2009; The ground, the air, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 2008; Spill, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2002.

Selected group exhibitions

in site: process, performance, documentation,UQ Art Museum, Brisbane, 2018; Runes: Photography and Decipherment, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 2018; Antipodean emanations: cameraless photographs from Australia and New Zealand, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne, 2018; Hold still: the photographic performance, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2018; Inspiracje Festival, Szczecin, Poland, 2017; Versus Rodin: bodies across space and time, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2017; Emanations: the art of the camera less photograph, Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth, 2016; The Photograph and Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2015; Photography Meets Feminism: Australian women photographers 1970s-80s, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne, 2014; Mix Tape 1980s: Appropriation, Subculture, Critical Style, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013; Negotiating this world: Contemporary Australian Art,National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2012.

Artist’s profile