FotoFreo 2010 In Person
Andy Adams, Editor/Publisher, Flak Photo (USA)
Andy Adams is the editor/publisher of Flak Photo (www.flakphoto.com), a contemporary photography
website that celebrates the art & culture of photography online. An online gallery and social media
magazine, Flak Photo provides unique opportunities for artists and photography organisations to share
their work with an international community of photographers, galleries, publishers, curators and editors.
The site is published six days a week and highlights new series work, book projects and gallery exhibitions
from established and emerging photographers. Recent features include 3030 Press’ New Photography in
China, Humble Arts Foundation’s 31 Under 31: Young Women in Art Photography, Hamburger Eyes Photo
Magazine’s Inside Burgerworld, the Photographic Resource Center’s EXPOSURE: The Annual PRC Juried
Exhibition, Big City Press’ Hijacked, Volume One: Australia & America, and David Wright + Ethan Jones’
Pause to Begin.
Narelle Autio, Photographer (Australia)
Narelle Autio was born and raised in Adelaide, completing her studies with a degree in Visual Arts at
the University of South Australia. Autio began her career as a photojournalist at the Adelaide Advertiser
before leaving Australia in 1994. She travelled extensively throughout the USA and Europe, working
in England for numerous UK national newspapers as well as being the principle photographer for
Australia’s News Limited London bureau. Returning home in 1998 Autio worked as a staff photographer
at The Sydney Morning Herald until 2003, winning the international Leica Oskar Barnack Award for her
series Coastal Dwellers in 2002 - the only Australian to win this prestigious award. Autio has also won
two World Press Awards, an American Picture of the Year Award and two Walkley Awards. The Seventh
Wave, collaborating with Trent Parke was Autio’s first exhibition in 2000, followed in 2002 by the
series Not of this Earth. Her solo show in 2004, Watercolours, continued her exploration of Australians
at leisure, followed in 2009 with The Summer of Us, a document of what is left behind on the beach
through nature and by man.
Philip Blenkinsop, Photographer (Thailand/Australia)
Philip Blenkinsop has been described as ‘A man of guerrillas and of resistances,’ (Herve Le Goff)
and ‘One of the most essential photographers of his generation.’ (Christian Caujolle). Since arriving
in Asia in 1989, Blenkinsop’s name has become synonymous with forgotten conflicts. Blenkinsop is
adamant that the photographer should never censor scenes through the camera. “Photographers are
both witness and messenger. Our responsibility must always lie with the people we focus on, and
with the accurate depiction of their plight, regardless of how unpalatable this might be for magazine
readers.” His work, published internationally, has been the catalyst for much discussion. Blenkinsop
was awarded Amnesty International’s Photojournalism prize for excellence in human rights journalism
and the 2008 Visa d’Or in the News Category for his China Earthquake work. This is his third Visa
d’Or award. The author of two books, The Cars That Ate Bangkok, and Extreme Asie, Blenkinsop
continues to live in Asia and is currently working on reports that look at man’s relationship to our
changing environment.
Marta Daho, Curator (Spain)
Born in Milan in 1969, Marta Daho is a curator of photography, currently responsible for exhibition and
editorial projects at the University of Barcelona. Since 1995 Daho has curated a number of exhibition
and editorial projects for internationally recognised institutions such as Magnum Photos where she was
the Exhibition Director (2001 - 2005), the private contemporary art foundation Metrònom in Barcelona
(1995 – 2001) or more recently for SCAN, and the Photography Festival based in Tarragona, Talent Latent
’08. Two of the projects curated for Talent Latent, In the shadow of Photography by Magda Stanova and 20.12-53 – 10.08-04 by Moira Ricci, were recently selected for the Discovery Prize at the 2009 Arles Photo Festival in France. Her most recent project was Graciela Iturbide, a retrospective of the Mexican photographer’s work at the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid. The show will tour to the Fotomuseum Wintertur in Switzerland.
Kapil Das, Publisher, Blindboys.org (India)
Kapil Das is the co-publisher of blindboys.org, a community-driven space which uses simple and effective
ways to reach out to photographers and audiences alike. Blindboys is committed to exploring effective
ways to bring these two together. Using internet and social media and then translating that into real events
like the blowup - an improvised street exhibition where everyone is invited to come and display their
work on the streets together with other photographers. Blindboys is trying to build a community of likeminded
people with the firm belief that opportunities should be available to everyone - an alternative to
the traditional photograph from its moment of creation to its consumption. Blindboys.org has over 1200
members from over 24 countries with the majority of members coming from India and South East Asia.
It has published over 20 essays on its site, focusing on diverse perspectives from Asia. Over the last 4
months blindboys has organised 3 blowups in Bangalore, Paris and Delhi - displaying works from over 15
photographers and 2500 pictures. Blindboys is a free platform and will remain so.
Alasdair Foster Director, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney (Scotland/Australia)
Alasdair Foster is director of the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney – Australia’s longest running
contemporary art space. He was formerly the founding director of Fotofeis, the award-winning international
biennale of photo-based art in Scotland. Alasdair is currently a member of the photomedia research
cluster at Monash University Department of Theory of Art and Design, and was formerly President of the
Contemporary Art Organisations of Australia. He has contributed to a number of books including: BLINK
(Phaidon, 2002); Ray Cook – Diary of a Fortunate Man (QCP, 2007); Erwin Olaf (Aperture 2008); Edward
Burtynsky Minescapes (WAM 2009).
Sohrab Hura, Photographer (India)
Sohrab Hura, born in 1981, grew up in India, changing his ambitions from one exciting thing to another.
He started with dreams of becoming a dog, which later turned to becoming a superhero and then to a
veterinarian, a herpetologist, to a wild-life filmmaker. Today he is a documentary photographer working
on long-term projects, after having completed a Masters degree at the Delhi School of Economics. Since
2006 Hura has been awarded the India Press Photo Awards for three different projects, the National
Foundation for India’s National Media Fellowship Programme 2006 and in 2009 he was selected for the
World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. Hura has exhibited at Chobimela, Bangladesh; Month of
Photography, Tokyo; Click! Contemporary Photography in India, New Delhi; Angkor Photography Festival,
Cambodia; Image Singulières, France and Photo Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Carrie Levy, Director of Education, Hudson Valley Centre for Contemporary Art (USA)
Carrie Levy is a New York based photo editor, curator, professor of photography and photographer. She
has worked in recent years as photo editor for Newsweek, The New Yorker, Random House, The New
York Times Magazine and Vogue. Currently Director of Education at the Hudson Center for Contemporary
Art in Peekskill, New York, Levy is also part-time faculty at Parsons The New School for Design. Levy’s
photographic work is based on confinement, authority and control. Her series of images, Domestic Stages,
was exhibited at DCFA in 2005 and Impaired in 2007. Levy was selected as one of the best emerging
photographers of 2005 by Art Review magazine and has lectured at the Museum of the City of New York
and at Photo London 2005. Trolley published 51 Months in 2005, Levy’s visual journal of her family during
her father’s incarceration – a project she began at the age of 15. The book has been featured in Newsweek,
French Vogue, The London Times Sunday Magazine, Look-Look and Foto Magazine.
Jon Levy, Editor, Foto8 (UK)
Jon Levy is the founder and director of Foto8, a British-based photography company responsible for the
publication of 8 Magazine, the Biannual of Photography. From its inception in 1998 as a website (foto8.
com), Foto8 has been a place for photojournalists to share and develop their issue-based documentaries.
In print, online and on display on the walls of its sister gallery HOST, Foto8 aims to provide a platform for
storytelling as well as a venue for photographers to connect to and nurture an audience for their stories.
Kyla McFarlane Assistant Curator - Exhibitions, Monash Univeristy (Melbourne, Australia)
Dr Kyla McFarlane is a writer, editor and Assistant Curator - Exhibitions at Monash University Museum
of Art, Melbourne. McFarlane has written on contemporary visual art in Australia and New Zealand since
1996, with a particular emphasis on photography. She has published numerous catalogue essays,
articles, book chapters and reviews and is editor of FLASH, CCP’s online journal of photography and
video. McFarlane’s curatorial projects at Monash University Museum of Art include Photographer
Unknown, 2009; The Ecologies Project, with Geraldine Barlow, 2008 and The Line Between Us: The
Maternal Relation in Contemporary Photography, 2005. McFarlane holds a PhD in visual culture from
Monash University, which focuses on the relationship between contemporary photography, feminism and
psychoanalysis. She has also worked as a pictorial editor at The Age and the New Zealand Herald.
Mark McPherson, Editor, Big City Press (Perth, Australia)
Mark McPherson is an entrepreneur and the head of Big City Press, the Australian-based independent
publisher of the Hijacked photography book series. Hijacked is a collaborative, cross-cultural ensemble
publication that aims to survey new photography from juxtaposed countries, with Australia as a constant.
As a passionate photographer, publisher, and editor of Hijacked, McPherson is currently collaborating with
emerging and established artists, curators, writers and photographers for future volumes. This unconventional
project engages with alternative cultural and artistic networks between contemporary Australian and
international photographers. McPherson is interested in the international state of photography, and its impact,
integration and intersection with art photography practice and book publishing in Australia. Hijacked 1 –
Australia & America was published in 2008. Hijacked 2 – Australia & Germany is due for release in June 2010
and Hijacked 3 – Australia & UK is in development for release in 2012.
Stacy Mehrfar, Photographer (USA)
Stacy Arezou Mehrfar, born in 1977, is an American artist currently living and working in
Sydney, Australia. Her work has been exhibited in Australia, Poland, and the United States. She has
received distinctions from numerous organisations, including the Perth Centre for Photography, the
Center for Photography at Woodstock, Photo District News, Humble Arts Foundation, and The Magenta
Foundation. Mehrfar has participated in artist residencies at the Camera Club of New York as well as at
the Makor/Steinhardt Center, and her images are held in the Barclays Bank Emerging Artist collection, the
Center for Fine Art Photography Permanent Collection, and several private collections. Mehrfar’s images have been featured on Hey Hot Shot!, Urbanautica, Flak Photo, Nymphoto, Gomma Online, A Photography
Blog, The KunstlerCast Forum, Apartment Therapy, and Foliohunt.com, among others. She had her first
solo show at the Perth Centre for Photography in Perth, Australia, in August 2009.
Jack Pam, Photographer, Film Maker, Designer, Publisher (Melbourne, Australia)
Jack Pam – BOOOOOOOM! Create + Inspire + Community + Art + Design + Music + Film + Photos
+ Projects exhorts Pam’s website and it’s the best description of the wide-ranging interests and pursuits
of this young creative. Born somewhere on his parent’s travels in 1984, Pam now lives and works in
Melbourne, when not in other parts of the globe. The pursuit of travel and art has usually overtaken formal
education although Pam did study at Edith Cowan University between 2003-2005. Shortly after, he formed
mapfilms with Gustav Eden, a collaboration that could be described as a film production house except
that Eden and Pam keep doing all sorts of other things with it that aim to engage and entertain a worldwide
community. In 2009, together with Morgan Campbell, he established staple, a quarterly skate magazine
distributed around Australia and online. Pam’s photography has been exhibited at the Australian Centre
for Photography; Kaunas Photography Festival, Lithuania; National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. In 2007, his
short film, The Rabbit, produced with writer Joseph London, won the 48h Film Festival in Berlin.
Max Pam, Photographer (Perth, Australia)
Born in Melbourne in 1949, Max Pam’s attention was first drawn to Asia by the ideological movements of
the sixties. He was 19 when he took the road to Kathmandu. Through the following three turbulent decades
he has travelled and photographed in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Australia. Pam’s first
survey show was held at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 1986, and was followed by a mid-career
retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1991. He was also the subject of a major exhibition
at the Comptoir de la Photographie, Paris in 1990, which covered the work of three decades. His books
include Visual Instincts (1989), Going East and Human Eye (1992), Max Pam and Ethiopia (1999), Indian
Ocean Journals (2000), Atlas Monographs - 1971/2005 (2009) and Contingency in Madagascar, with the
writer Stephen Muecke (Mácula de Plata, Gijon, Spain) is in production. Going East won the Grand Prix
du Livre Photographique in 1992. In the same year he held his largest solo show to date at the Sogo Nara
Museum of Art, Nara. Pam currently teaches photomedia at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia.
Aaron Rose, Film Director, Art Show Curator and Writer (USA)
Aaron Rose is most responsible as the cornerstone of the Beautiful Losers art movement. In 2005, he
published with Drago, Young Sleek and Full of Hell, where he collects over 100 artists including Mark
Gonzales, Ed Templeton, Thomas Campbell, Phil Frost, Spike Jonze, Sofia Coppola, Sonic Youth, Terry
Richardson. He was co-curator of the Beautiful Losers touring art exhibit, and edited the collected art book
released by Iconoclast and Distributed Art Publishers in 2004. Rose is also the director of the documentary
film Beautiful Losers, which began its US theatrical run in 2008. He was the owner and director of Alleged
Gallery in New York City and created Alleged Press, which has released books featuring the art of Ari
Marcopoulos, Ed Templeton, Mike Mills, Barry McGee and Chris Johanson. He is also co-editor of ANP
Quarterly. Rose is signed as a director with the Los Angeles company, The Directors Bureau which also
represents Mike Mills and Sofia Coppola. In 2009, he was hired by Wieden+Kennedy to help create WKE
(WKEntertainment), a content-driven entertainment channel and production house. At WKE, Rose is the
producer of numerous television projects including Califunya, D.I.Y. America, and Don’t Move Here, which
he also directs.
Amy Stein, Photographer (USA)
Amy Stein (b. 1970) is a photographer and teacher based in New York City. Her work explores our evolving
isolation from community, culture and the environment. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and her
work is featured in many private and public collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum
of Contemporary Photography, the Nevada Museum of Art, SMoCA and the West Collection. In 2006, Amy was
a winner of the Saatchi Gallery/Guardian Prize for her Domesticated series. In 2007, she was named one of the
top fifteen emerging photographers in the world by American Photo magazine and she won the Critical Mass
Book Award. Amy’s first book, Domesticated, was released in fall 2008. It won the best book award at the 2008
New York Photo Festival. Amy was raised in Washington, DC, and Karachi, Pakistan. She holds a BS in Political
Science from James Madison University and a MS in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh in
Scotland. In 2006, Amy received her MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York.
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