Exhibitions › Linden Projects Space › Morganna Magee

morganna magee

Distant Shores

Curated by Anna Monea

9 June > 31 July 2022
Linden Projects Space
Tuesday to Sunday, 11AM > 4PM

Linden New Art presents Distant Shores, a new exhibition project co-produced by Melbourne/Naarm-based photographic artist Morganna Magee and curator Anna Monea. Developed in collaboration with members from the local community, Distant Shores combines documentary photography, family photos and written testimony to tell the story of the migrant experience through themes of cultural connection, memory, longing and loss.

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Please note > Linden Projects Space is not wheelchair accessible. We apologise for any inconvenience.

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IMAGE > [Top] Morganna Magee, Mahdi, 2021, digital print on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.
IMAGE > Morganna Magee, Anahita, 2021, digital print on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

IMAGE > Morganna Magee, Humaira [detail], 2021, digital print on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

For Distant Shores, Magee and Monea worked with recently arrived migrants, refugees and people seeking asylum based in the City of Port Phillip municipality to create a series of photographic profiles celebrating cultural heritage. Exploring each participant’s cultural ties to their homeland in the wake of the disconnection imposed by the pandemic, Magee presents a personal image belonging to the participant alongside their portrait, which, captured by Magee, recreates the original photograph in an Australian context. Intimate, emotional and deeply insightful, Distant Shores is a sensitive work that gently speaks to our shared humanity.

DISTANT SHORES explores the cultural and personal links of each participant to their homeland and how they have created a new life here in Australia. Migrants, refugees and people seeking asylum leave their homelands for a myriad of reasons, often horrific, but in many cases they have to leave loved ones behind. If they are fortunate, they have photographs - small mementos of their loved ones back home. By presenting these images and recreating them within an Australian setting, DISTANT SHORES offers insight into each person’s life and how far they have travelled.

Anna Monea, curator, 2022

IMAGES > (left) Morganna Magee, Anahita (Fariba, 1978, Tehran, Iran) [detail], digital print on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.
(right) Morganna Magee, Humaira (Amirbegum, 2021, Kabul, Afghanistan) [detail], digital print on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.

Morganna Magee

Morganna Magee is a social documentary photographer and educator whose photographic practice sits at the intersection of storytelling and expanded documentary. To date her personal work has examined the complexities around issues such as disability, grief and womanhood. Magee’s images have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Age, The Big Issue, Art and Australia and many more. She is a founding member of Lumina Collective, an organisation of award-winning female and non-binary photographic artists. Magee lectures in Photo Imaging at Swinburne University.

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IMAGE > Portrait of Morganna Magee with 8 x 10 camera, 2020.
Image courtesy of the artist.

IMAGE > Portrait of Anna Monea. Image courtesy of the artist.

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Anna Monea

Anna Monea is an established creative producer and curator working across the Arts. She has produced festivals, events, concerts, exhibitions and film festivals, and is committed to the development of new work by Australian practitioners across a broad range of mediums.

This project has been supported through the City of Port Phillip Cultural Development Fund.

Sustaining Creative Workers Initiative is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Regional Arts Victoria.

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