Ballarat International Foto Biennale

The Ballarat International Foto Biennale is back for its 2017 edition and promises to present the world on your doorstep – celebrating and creating a shared, exciting perspective of how we see our surrounds, our community and ourselves.

The vision for this year’s Biennale raises the bar, with more events and chances for audiences to engage with the photographic image in all its forms – from established to amateur.

Courtney Love: Pieta, (detail) 2006. © David LaChapelle.
Courtney Love: Pieta, (detail) 2006. © David LaChapelle.

The Core Program exhibits at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, The Mining Exchange, the Minerva Room, The Observatory, Post Office Gallery, Backspace Gallery, and the Town Hall. The Fringe Program is staged at more than 70 cafes, galleries, and wine bars across Ballarat, showcasing local and national photographic talent.

The centrepiece of the 2017 Ballarat International Foto Biennale is an exhibition by David LaChapelle, one of the most important photographers of our time. This is the first time David LaChapelle will exhibit in Australia.

The 2017 program, with special events planned for all five weekends, is expected to attract an attendance of over 50,000 people.

Along with the exhibitions there are:

  • Workshops
  • Portfolio reviews
  • Special Events
  • Talks and Walks
  • And much more...


The Biennale is guided by the principle that it not only serves the community but also plays a vital role in cultivating it. It strives to engage the local community with creative and courageous programming.

Buy tickets and register for your favourite events here...

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November

Sydney: The exhibition delves into the State Library of NSW's vast collection of two million images, showcasing 400 photos – many displayed for the first time.

February

Melbourne: Jill Orr’s The Promised Land Refigured is an exhibition that reworks the original project created in 2012 with new insights that have emerged in the past eleven years.

March

Melbourne: Environmental Futures features five artists whose work addresses how the natural world is affected by climate change and encompasses photography, sculpture and installation both within the gallery spaces and around the museum grounds.

Ballarat: Nan Goldin is an American artist whose work explores subcultures, moments of intimacy, the impacts of the HIV/AIDS and opioid epidemics on her communities, and photography as a tool for social activism.

Sydney: The Ocean Photographer of the Year Award, run by London based Oceanographic Magazine is in its 4th year and has quickly achieved recognition amongst photographers around the world.

Albury: The National Photography Prize offers a $30,000 acquisitive prize, the $5000 John and Margaret Baker Fellowship for an emerging practitioner, and further supports a number of artists through focused acquisitions.

April

Sydney: Photographers Harold David, Lyndal Irons, Ladstreet, Selina Ou, David Porter, Greg Semu, and Craig Walsh exhibit a diverse and varied snapshot of Penrith and western Sydney as it has changed and grown over the last sixty years.

The City Surveyor’s ‘Condemnation and Demolition Books’ is a key photographic collection held in the City Archives comprising almost 5000 photographs and associated glass plate negatives.

Sydney: The images in Bill Henson’s cinematic new body of work, The Liquid Night, derive from work the highly acclaimed artist shot on 35mm colour negative film in New York City in 1989.

May

Ballarat: Art Gallery of Ballarat presents Lost in Palm Springs, a multidisciplinary exhibition that brings together fourteen creative minds who respond to, capture, or re-imagine the magical qualities of the landscape and the celebrated mid-century modern architecture of Palm Springs, California and across Australia.