'Five - Fremantle Prison' announced as a finalist in the WA State Heritage Awards.

Hardly a criminal mastermind...

There was large hill up behind where I spent my teenage years near a notoriously dangerous intersection. My parents ran a small motel there which sat next to a popular restrooms and petrol station. Bored one day my brother and I crossed one of the roads, climbed up behind a small row of trees and over a few fences to get about half way up the hill.

We thought it a good idea to dislodge a large basketball-sized rock to see how far it would roll down the hill and, much to our excitement, it quickly gathered more and more speed. It smashed through one of the fences, jumped the next before crashing very noisily into the trees.

After we came down, we heard from the horrified local petrol station owner that he, hearing the noise the rock made as it approached, had seen the rock fly out the other side of the trees, bounce once on the normally very busy road before resting in a paddock. It passed about 20 metres to the left of the petrol station.

I guess my main point is that the difference between being 'inside' and 'outside' can be as simple as being lucky or unlucky on any given day. This is not to say that those in Prison are there by bad luck alone but rather that it can be a complex mixture of circumstances. Equally those on the 'outside' might live their privileged lives on the simple basis of being born in the right country to the right parents at the right time.

'Five - Fremantle Prison', Fremantle Prison, August 2012. Image: Christopher Young.

I'm happy to announce that the work I exhibited in Fremantle Prison in 2012 was today announced as a finalist in the Western Australian State Heritage Awards (Outstanding interpretation project that enhances a place).

Self-funded and on exhibition for six months, Five - Fremantle Prison looked at the traces of activity in this iconic location. Normal processes occurred with protagonists eating, sleeping, working and playing. As such, it could be seen as a highly concentrated microcosm of the outside world.

The resulting photographic artworks, research, booklet and selection of objects illustrated the beauty that can be found in the everyday. It offered a new insight into the Prison’s more recent past, giving viewers an opportunity to explore some rarely seen sections of the Prison as well as look at others afresh.

The finalists have been published to the State Heritage Office website and the winners are to be announced at His Majesty's Theatre in early April.

A selection of work from the series is also currently on show at Sofitel Melbourne on Collins (25 Collins St, Melbourne) until April 13.

Ambitions for 2014

2014 will - for zebra-factory at least - be a much quieter and hopefully less bipolar year than the mildly insane 2013. That said, writing down what's coming up it does still sound a bit hectic!

We plan to put out at least three books including the long-delayed New Zealand work, a book of the Polish work (shown at Kurb during FotoFreo 2012) as well as a much expanded edition of 'Six'. The latter will include more images made across the project including others outside the scope of the residency. If I find the energy I might also publish a final book of the 'Five' series.

The hard cover version of Elisa's 'The Strange Quiet of Things Misplaced' has already been released (http://au.blurb.com/b/4838672-the-strange-quiet-of-things-misplaced).

All of these books will now be published through Blurb as we can't afford to finance entire print runs locally. Unfortunately this means that they will come at a premium but we do hope to put out both hard cover and soft cover versions to at least give people some options.

The Sofitel exhibitions will run until early March (https://www.facebook.com/events/567977646605914/ and https://www.facebook.com/events/670959532937582/) and a portion of the work will likely stay in Melbourne for another exhibition from May 2014.

Elisa will be doing an artist residency with Central TAFE in the fourth quarter of 2014 and will also be showing a selection of works from 'The Original Place' as part of that.

The Bankwest Award (https://www.bankwest.com.au/artprize) continues through to March and it's likely that 'Six' will be significantly extended at the Subiaco Museum (https://www.facebook.com/events/167618520088719/).

There are a few other things on as well so keep an eye on our Facebook page for updates (https://www.facebook.com/pages/zebra-factorycom/125311714165969?ref=hl)

Artperth is still chugging along and I am considering producing a small, extremely lo-fi magazine at some stage. I do need to test the waters a bit to see how I will get on with content. Ideally we would like to publish text about the various exhibitions on at any given moment as well as feature one project. Everything would be black & white, saddle-stitched and probably printed at Officeworks!

I have taken up a position on PCP's board (http://www.pcp.org.au/) and I hope to help them in whatever way I can to push this great organisation even further.

Finally, this year I am personally determined to do some 'mucking about' with other media. There have already been a few mildly successful experiments over the last few weeks so you never know! I'm not dissatisfied with my light catchers, just looking for other ways to express myself…. I promise to spare you my poems though!

Elisa Markes-Young's 'The Strange Quiet of Things Misplaced'
http://au.blurb.com/b/4838672-the-strange-quiet-of-things-misplaced

Elisa Markes-Young's 'The Strange Quiet of Things Misplaced'
http://au.blurb.com/b/4838672-the-strange-quiet-of-things-misplaced

The Original Place @ Sofitel Melbourne on Collins

Six @ Sofitel Melbourne on Collins

Fremantle Prison @ Sofitel Melbourne on Collins

Front room @ Subiaco Museum

Front room @ Subiaco Museum

Display cabinet in Six @ Subiaco Museum.

five @ Fremantle Prison: May 3-November 18, 2012

The exhibition has now been up a little under a month and feedback has been really positive so far.

Further to the video, here are some documentation shots of both the install and booklet.

The booklet is available for sale both in the Prison shop or online.

"Over the course of a number of photo shoots in 2010 and 2011, Christopher Young was given access to Fremantle Prison to produce a new collection of images as part of his award-winning series 'five'.

The resultant images illustrate the beauty that can be found in the everyday. They give viewers an opportunity to explore some rarely seen sections of the Prison and to look at others afresh.

Together with an eclectic display of items from the Prison’s collection, the exhibition offers a new insight into the Prison’s more recent past."

Dates: May 3-November 18, 2012.
Opening Times: 9.00am to 5.00pm daily.
Price: Free.

Fremantle Prison
Side Gallery
1 The Terrace
FREMANTLE WA 6160

Ph: 08 9336 9200
Fax: 08 9430 7188
Email: info@fremantleprison.com.au
Website: www.fremantleprison.com.au

five - video runthrough...

I'd put this together for people who couldn't attend the show in person.

Update on 'five'...

I've just realised that I haven't written anything about the opening or the first weekend.

It went off really well after a mild (!) disaster the night before... 7 of 13 images decided they didn't want to hang and fell overnight....!

I had to reprint three literally hours before the opening and some are unfortunately still a little bit 'tweaked'. It's not really noticable but I literally can't afford to replace all of them at the moment.

The opening itself was a bit hard to gauge but I've been told it was 100+ over the course of the night. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive and it was refreshing and reassuring to see familiar faces.

I babysat for a few hours on Friday (10th) and then all of Sunday (12th)... both days had their share of visitors and Sunday kept me more than busy (and verbose) with talkative visitors.

I also sent off the 70+ books last week (plus an occasional DVD) to various people in both Perth and wider Australia. I don't really expect anything out of it but you never know.

I recently got confirmation that the Fremantle Print Award has accepted one of the works from the series for the show at Fremantle Arts Centre... again, I don't really expect anything but I really enjoyed being part of that in 2006 so I look forward to see how it comes together this year.