• Printed 1990
    Printed 1990
  • AGNSW The Trip
From the portfolio Hindustan autobiographies
    AGNSW The Trip From the portfolio Hindustan autobiographies
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A new exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW features works by photographers Micky Allan, Max Pam and Jon Rhodes and shows the similarities and differences in the way these three Australians went about recording their travels to unfamiliar places.

Showcasing 42 images from the 1970s and '80s, My Trip charts the intersection of three distinct responses to travel and the use of photography as a means of recording and conceptualising sights, thoughts and experiences.

Throughout his 40-year career, Max Pam has documented the chance encounters that travel affords. In 1969 he responded to an ad posted on the notice board of the Monash University Student Union by an astrophysicist looking for a companion on a trip from Calcutta to London by car. Pam was captivated by the abundance of visual stimuli in the cultures he passed through which stood in such sharp contrast to the world of his upbringing in suburban Melbourne.

While Pam sought inspiration overseas, specifically in Asia, Jon Rhodes and Micky Allan set out on expeditions much closer to home. Rhodes dedicated much of his photographic career to exploring Australian Indigenous culture. Living among the communities he photographs for long periods, Rhodes establishes a familiarity with his subjects that is clear in his photographs. Rhodes often works with sequential arrangements of images that function like a storyboard, replaying the pace and progression of a journey.

Allan's work also relies on the pairing of sequential images. After Christmas in 1975, she undertook a 17-day road trip through rural Victoria. Along the way she photographed every person she spoke to and invited them to take a photograph with her camera as well. Allan collated these photographs in a black-and-white tabloid-format newspaper, printing the paired images alongside transcripts of what was said during each exchange. The publication, My Trip, from which this exhibition takes its title, not only provides an account of Allan's personal experiences on the road but also the way people of the time responded to the idea of a woman travelling alone.

My Trip is at the Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery Road, The Domain, Sydney, until 7 December 2104.

AGNSW The TripFrom the portfolio Hindustan autobiographiesKashmir 1977, by Max Pam.


Printed 1990Acrobats 1989, by Max Pam.



Gurka'wuy, Trial Bay, Northern Territory, 1974, by Jon Rhodes.

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