TOPshots 2021–22 (group exhibition)

TOPshots is an annual celebration of emerging photomedia artists at MGA. Established more than a decade ago, this award and exhibition continues to showcase exceptional photographic work produced by students who have completed the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) subjects of Art, Media and Studio Arts, as well as the International Baccalaureate (IB) Visual Arts.

© Lucy Crowe. Pink scales, 2021, from the series, Fragile armour. Collection of the artist. Courtesy of the artist and Sacre Coeur.
© Lucy Crowe. Pink scales, 2021, from the series, Fragile armour.
Collection of the artist. Courtesy of the artist and Sacre Coeur.

The artworks displayed in this exhibition have been selected from a large pool of entries, and represent a small sample of the creative talent that emerged out of Melbourne’s high schools in 2021. MGA is proud to have the opportunity to foreground and acknowledge the excellence of young photomedia artists in our community while providing a vital platform for these artists to share and exhibit their work.
The winner of TOPshots 2021–22 will receive the inaugural Rosie Hughes Memorial Prize, sponsored by The Waverley Camera Club in memory of their late member Rosie Hughes.

Curator: Stella Loftus-Hills

Artists: Ella Chawkley | Emerald Secondary College, Mikayla Crossett | Glen Waverley Secondary College, Lucy Crowe | Sacre Coeur, Sebastian Crupi | Kew High School, Gabrielle Edwards | Vermont Secondary College, Stella Hammet | Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Isabella Hughes | Loreto Mandeville Hall Toorak, Madison Jeffares | Caulfield Grammar School, Chloe Lochhead | Loreto Mandeville Hall Toorak, Tom Machin | Carey Baptist Grammar School, Jemima Mantello | Toorak College, Olivia McQuitty | Avila College, Rochelle Paris | Beaconhills College, Jodhi Ramsden-Mavric | Albert Park College, Lucy Vickers-Willis | Loreto Mandeville Hall Toorak

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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.