The Photograph and Australia, curated by Judy Annear

There have not been enough books or exhibitions about photography and Australia, given that the medium is so popular and so fundamental to our visual culture, and that it has left such rich resources in our museums, libraries and archives. There was Jack Catos anecdotal The Story of the Camera in Australia, first published in 1955 but still in print in 1977. Then in 1988 the confluence of the bicentenary and the 150th anniversary of the invention of the medium led to two further books to succeed Catos: Gael Newtons Shades of Light: Photography and Australia, accompanied by a National Gallery of Australia exhibition, which linked Australian photography to international aesthetic narratives such as modernism; and Anne-Marie Williss Picturing Australia, which took a socio-critical approach to photography as a medium of power. Next came some institutional collection showcases, which used the idea of Australia as a framing device. Then, in 2007, Helen Enniss Photography and Australia used the medium, which she regarded as having no singular or monolithic form, to reflect on key themes in Australian society such as Indigenous settler interactions, the land, modernity and our relationship to the rest of the world