Photofields festival returns to Sydney in December

Photofields 2024, a photography event by Powerhouse, is set to return to Sydney this December 6–7, with an expanded program of workshops, talks, screenings and an exhibition.

Held at Ace Hotel, Golden Age Cinema and Sydney Observatory, the program seeks to bring together photographers, astronomers, and filmmakers to explore the powerful role of lens-based media in telling stories about the cosmos, the sky, and Country.

This year’s program is especially significant as it marks the 150th anniversary of the Sydney Observatory’s photographic capture of the Transit of Venus, an event that, in 1874, united astronomers and photographers in an extraordinary interdisciplinary collaboration.

At the event's opening night, two of Australia’s most celebrated artists, Trent Parke and Narelle Autio, will be in conversation at the Ace Hotel.

Renowned for their practice spanning photography, film and books, the duo will share stories from their expansive careers, including their latest photographic projects that reveal hidden worlds.

In addition, Golden Age Cinema will host a screening of award-winning documentary All Light, Everywhere (2021) by Theo Anthony.

The film examines the biases inherent in human perception, exploring these ideas through the lens of astronomy and referencing one of the world’s first motion pictures, which documented the Transit of Venus in 1874.

Before the feature documentary, audiences will get a preview screening of the new Powerhouse production, Human Computer (2024); a short film directed by New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship Award recipient Liselle Mei.

This film brings to life the story of Winsome Bellamy, a female scientific assistant at Sydney Observatory who worked for 20 years on one of the most ambitious photographic endeavours in history, the ‘Carte du Ciel’ (Mapping the Stars) project, a collaboration between 18 observatories around the world that was carried out from 1916 to 1958.

During this period, Sydney Observatory mapped 740,000 stars on 1,400 photographic plates.

A host of other events will occur over the two day festival, including artist and photographer Yvette Hamilton delivering a ‘cameraless’ lumen printing workshop, multimedia artist Meng-Yu Yan guiding participants through a shadow photography workshop after dark, and First Nations photographer Peta Clancy leading ‘Photographing with Country’, a workshop that invites participants to engage with the landscapes and cultural histories of Country through the lens of photography.

The tradition of photographic observation at Sydney Observatory continues with the 20th anniversary edition of the Southern Sky Astrophotography 2024 exhibition.

This exhibition displays the top entries from the 2024 David Malin Awards, an Australian astrophotography competition presented annually by the Central West Astronomical Society.

The free exhibition will be open to the public from 5 December – 1 February.

Throughout the program, members of the public are also invited to visit Sydney Observatory to participate in telescope demonstrations led by Western Sydney University astronomers as well as special tours offering a rare chance to explore the site through the lens of photography and to look at the skies through Australia’s oldest working telescope, 150 years after it was first used to capture the stars.

You can find out more about Photofields here.