Nationality Australia | Name Jon Rhodes | |
Occupation Cinematographer & photographer | ||
Jon Rhodes is an Australian photographer who was born in 1947. He has been described as a "pioneer" in "the development of a collaborative methodology between high art photography and [Australian] Aboriginal People living in remote communities". Rhodes' work is represented in all major Australian collections and in the J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
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Early life
Jon Rhodes was born in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales and spent his early life in Brisbane, Queensland. From 1968 to 1971 Rhodes worked as a photographer at the University of New South Wales. In 1971 he joined Film Australia as a cinematographer working in documentary cinematography. When with Film Australia, he filmed in Australia, in Papua New Guinea and in India. Rhodes left Film Australia in 1977.
Career
An early example of Rhodes' collaborative work with Aboriginal People is his Just another sunrise? series (subtitled The impact of bauxite mining on Aboriginal community). This series was based on activism by the Yolgnu People against Nabalco Pty Ltd. The Yolgnu People saw the bauxite mining as desecrating their sacred sites. In the course of that activism, the Yolgnu People instituted legal action in 1968 (Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd), claiming that bauxite mining at Yirrkala on the Gove Peninsula was in breach of their land rights. The series is in the form of 17 panels. An introductory panel is a textual description of the Yolgnu People's opposition to the mining activities, 8 panels deal with mining infrastructure and 9 panels deal with settlements established by the Yolgnu in protest against the mining.
Just another sunrise? uses a series of photographs to convey a narrative. This approach by Rhodes has been described as "steadfastly rejecting the idea that everything could be said in a single image, working rather in series which had a filmic feel", contrasting with the "decisive moment" approach of Cartier-Bresson.
In 1978, Rhodes was one of six photographers who were commissioned by the sugar refiner CSR Limited to photograph its refinery at Pyrmont for its centenary. Rhodes' images emphasized "the repetitive and machine-dominated nature of the work". In the same year, the National Gallery of Victoria held a joint exhibition of the works of Jon Rhodes and of the landscape photographer Laurie Wilson.
Rhodes was a contributor to the publication After Two Hundred Years: Photographic Essays of Aboriginal and Islander Australia Today. This publication was the work of a team of photographers who stayed in remote communities between 1985 and 1987 in the course of a project for the Australian bicentenary. The later exhibition Kundat Jaru Mob used photographs which had been taken by Rhodes and by community residents during the course of that Bicentenary project.
The exhibition My trip displayed 43 works by Rhodes and by two other Australian photographers, Micky Allan and Max Pam. The photographs by Micky Allan were from a road trip that she took through rural Victoria in 1975, the photographs by Max Pam were from a trip to India. The exhibition included twelve works by Rhodes spanning the years 1974 to 1990. These works were about Aboriginal People and their land.
In 1994, Rhodes published the book Site Seeing. It contains text by David Brooks, a collection of photographs by Rhodes and a collection of paintings by Carol Ruff. It tells "the story of some of the Arrente sacred sites in Alice Springs" and was inspired by a pamphlet by Brooks which was "originally published as a guide for people living in or visiting the town" [of Alice Springs].
In 2008, the Australian National University granted Rhodes a H.C. Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship. During the fellowship Rhodes lived in Canberra and researched the places which he photographed for his exhibition Cage of Ghosts. The photographs in Cage of Ghosts are the results of Rhodes' "search ... for physical reminders of Aboriginal occupation in south-eastern Australia, where the impact of European settlement has been the longest and most intense". The name "Cage of ghosts" is a reference to the "vulnerable and fragile", "caged and contained places" that Rhodes photographed - places which are protected by "fences, chains and posts ... bars and locks".