Foto festival’s program released

THE Ballarat International Foto Biennale program has been announced ahead of the visual arts festival’s August launch.

BIFB artistic director Fiona Sweet said the premise of this year’s event is Past. Tense. Now.

“In the last year there have been many moments when the past and future seem to collapse and the immediacy of the here and now dominates,” she said.

“We long for a return to the known and imagine what may come next. Of their time, the photographic artists of the nineth Biennale work with the ferociousness of existence, marking the singular moments and ideas that punctuate and transcend time.

“I’m really excited by this year’s program, and I can’t wait for people to explore it.”

The Biennale will include the Australian premiere of Linda McCartney: Retrospective featuring over 200 of the late creative’s photographs of family life and the music world. These have been curated by her family; Stella, Mary and Paul McCartney.

We will all eventually return to earth is a showcase looking at culture, colonisation, ownership and authorship, featuring 11 international photographers, while Dibalik presents the perspectives of four female-identifying Indonesians.

Alix Marie’s Styx, the late Steven Arnold’s Notes from a Queer Mystic, Chow and Lin’s The Poverty Line, the collaborative In Translation and Raining Embers, Erik Kessels’ 24HRS in Photos, Number One|Gudinski, the Martin Kantor Portrait Prize, and The Fineman New Photography Award are all indoor exhibitions.

The outdoor BIFB program includes Aïda Muluneh’s The World Is 9, Say it with Flowers at the Ballarat Cemetery, McKenzie Street’s Unfamiliar Wilds, and the Bridge Mall’s Mass Isolation.

BIFB will run from Saturday, 28 August until Sunday, 24 October, also presenting lots of events, talks, walks, performing arts and dining experiences.

The free program on the streets, in cafes, restaurants and other shops will run across 89 sites. Visit ballaratfoto.org for tickets and passes.