Photo opportunity:
What: Town Hall to host Ballarat International Foto Biennale exhibition
When: Tomorrow, Wednesday 17 August at 10.30am
Where: Ballarat Town Hall, ‘A Hall’
The Ballarat Town Hall’s ‘A Hall’ will open its doors to the public to feature two photographic exhibitions as part of the 2011 Ballarat International Foto Biennale.
The A Hall will host two exhibitions as part of the month long festival. Artist Heather Dinas’ exhibitions titled ‘The Hymn of Kassiani’ and ‘Two Brides’ will feature as well as an exhibition by Alfred ‘Greg’ Gregory titled ‘Significant Moments of Time’.
The exhibitions will be on display throughout the Biennale, which runs from Saturday 20 August to Sunday 18 September.
City of Ballarat Mayor Cr Craig Fletcher said Ballarat was looking forward to hosting the Biennale again in 2011.
"Ballarat looks forward to welcoming thousands of visitors to the city during the month long event.
“It is particularly fantastic to see the A Hall open to the public again and I am confident that people will be delighted to see both the venue and the photographic exhibitions on display”
The Town Hall is one of 67 local venues hosting exhibitions for the Biennale. The A Hall will be open from 10am to 4pm daily.
The A Hall, fronting Armstrong Street, was constructed when alterations were made to the Town Hall building between 1911 and 1914. It was designed by Ballarat architectural firm Clegg and Miller.
During the early 1900s the A Hall was an impressive venue for civic events including ceremonies, concerts and dances. It was designed to open into the B hall – now the Council Chamber and a committee room. In World War One, the Red Cross used the A Hall for charity work.
The A Hall has not been used for public events following extensive internal alterations to the Town Hall between 1972 and 1974.
For more information on the Ballarat International Foto Biennale visit www.ballaratfoto.org
Artist background:
Helen Dinas
Having been brought up in Australia with Greek parents, Dinas has a unique cross -cultural perspective. From a young age it has fuelled her fascination with Byzantine iconography. Icons originate from a time when a great deal of the population was illiterate. A wealth of information and narrative was imparted through seemingly simple means such as the gaze of the depicted subject, a hand gesture and the juxtaposition of the subject to details and props. They can impose a sense of reverence, and solicit a delicate invitation. She has titled the images 'Icons' because they evoke a sense of contemplation and like their namesake speak to us through the symbology of gestures. These works are inspired by the ambivalence of the sensual and the spiritual, the pursuit of the whole self/higher self and issues of female identity.
Alfred 'Greg' Gregory 1913 – 2010
In the introduction to his 2007 book 'Alfred Gregory Photographs from Everest to Africa' Greg tells what photography meant to and for him. “For me, pictures are often seen in two-dimensional form where there is no perspective, and colour is rendered monochrome. Minimalism as an art form has always greatly interested me. I am interested in the isolation of subject matter relative to the rest of the picture, the shape of things against their background or the shapes left on the print by these things. Blanks within the photograph become patterns in themselves. Pictures are often objects trouves, things found when I have not been looking for them. They represent particular moments in time that inspired me to look beyond the ordinary to seek an inner meaning.”