Jalaan, June 6th 2020.
Jalaan Slabb, 16 years old, Bundjalung Country. It was a great honour to photograph her shaping her first surfboard, which I’m sure is going to be the first of many. A story unfolding…
Excited to become a global ambassdor with the incredible team at Surfaid supporting their work in remote communities connected to us by surfing.
Surfaid’s program work is about giving a handup, rather than a handout. The teams are led by local community leaders who are focused on empowering their own communities by using their vast local experience and knowledge in making positive change.
Looking forward to the year ahead!
You can learn more about Surfaid HERE
A snapshot of my current reading pile. I just finished The Stranger Artist by Quentin Sprague, Australianama by Samia Khatun and Identity by Francis Fukuyama over the last couple of weeks.
Samia Khatun’s Australianama, ‘The South-Asian Odyssey in Australia’, is so absolutely enthralling, I consider it a must-read for anyone interested in Australia and our Asian history. The book challenges western epistemes as the foundation of (Australian) knowledge (which is certainly pertinent to recognition of Australia’s Indigenous deep time history), and starts off with the painfully humourous story of a multitude of historians mislabelling a book found in a Broken Hill mosque, the Kasasol Ambia, a Sufi book of poetry, as a Koran. A must-read.
Fusing art and heart to dismantle patriarchal narratives of exclusion’
I’m very proud to be featured in a powerful, critical, hopeful and empowering new book written by Lauren Hill and published by Gestalten titled She Surf - The Rise of Female Surfing.
About a year ago, Lauren reached out to me and communicated her powerful vision for a book that would share the most inclusive and diverse narratives of women in surfing encompassing a view to the past, present and future. To me, this approach was the most crucial, honest and necessary stand for women, for surfing and the wider context of the lens we view women’s movement through the world. Further, this book is beyond a ‘best-ever contribution to female surfing’ as noted by a prominent surf website. This book is a statement to surfing fundamentally. The point of inclusion and diversity is to recognise the lived experience of all, not just the few, and to give dignity to that existence. A ‘best-ever contribution to surfing’ would be more apt, breaking down constructed narratives of female spaces.
A heartfelt Thankyou to Lauren and Gestalten for undertaking this monumental project. A heartfelt Thankyou to the wonderful women I have had the opportunity to photograph and be included in this groundbreaking book.
The book is available for purchase worldwide and at Gestalten.com.
Interview with Adobe Create
I actually couldn’t believe it when I first read the email. Purporting to be from Adobe, I quickly checked the email address to make sure I wasn’t about to hand over my life savings to an internet scam. Allaying my fears, I felt a sense of pride to be asked by the world’s undisputed leader in digital creative tools to share my work and story with them. In the midst of Covid anxieties I ended up having a great chat with the Adobe team out of Los Angeles.
You can find the story here:
Jay Jermyn is perhaps one of the most talented people I know. We are great friends, and I was more than excited to collaborate with Jay on producing a soundtrack for a suite of images that accompany the Dandy Savage exhibition at The Walls Art Space. Jay is a professional artist and musician with a Bachelor in Digital Media, and is the founder of the band Veople.
For more than a year already, I had been confiding in Jay about Dandy Savage. We talked about the story’s foundations, the people I had met and what this exhibition meant to me. Jay had not only lent an ear, but also elicited crucial feedback. We worked our way through the soundtrack, drawing on abstract moments from my Korean heritage that collided with the Dandy Savage story of subjectivity, discourse and doubt, yet were fused together with eternal fluidity of the ocean.
Thankyou Jay for all your support.
Here is the soundtrack we worked on with a slideshow of images from Dandy Savage:
This video tour brings together the suite of images in FRAN MILLER's online exhibition and book, both titled DANDY SAVAGE. The soundscape and slideshow was p...
Dandy Savage was supported by the Regional Arts Development Fund. The Regional Arts Development Fund is a partnership between the Queensland Government and the City of Gold Coast Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.
Drawing Dandy Savage Together: Mapping between the lines by Tristan Schultz
I had the wonderful opportunity to connect and collaborate with Tristan Schultz as part of the Dandy Savage exhibition. Tristan is of Gamilaroi Aboriginal and European Australian heritage and a passionate surfer. He holds a doctorate in Design from Queensland College of Art- Griffith University and is the founder and co-director of Relative Creative. Tristan’s arts practice, in his words, intersects foresight and futures thinking, decolonial thinking, strategic design, mapping, Indigenous Knowledge, arts and culture and sustainability.
Thankyou Tristan for sharing your knowledge in such a unique way I felt kept the door open to exploring intersecting knowledge relations and the epistemological foundations for that knowledge.
Here is the video piece Tristan and I mapped out together:
In DRAWING 'DANDY SAVAGE' TOGETHER: MAPPING BETWEEN THE LINES, TRISTAN SCHULTZ maps out a response to FRAN MILLER's book 'DANDY SAVAGE'. Through an online en...
Dandy Savage was supported by the Regional Arts Development Fund. The Regional Arts Development Fund is a partnership between the Queensland Government and the City of Gold Coast Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.
I could say the journey started in 2018, but really, the release of my artist book Dandy Savage is a culmination of years of work that predate the images within the book.
Dandy Savage is described by The Walls Art Space as, ‘Exploring subjectivity, heritage, ideological beliefs, discourse and doubt, DANDY SAVAGE captures a journey, a surf-based exploration, aboard a boat in remote Papua New Guinea.’
Launching via online exhibition format HERE on May 9th to May 24th 2020 at renowned Australian contemporary art gallery, The Walls Art Space, I am genuinely overwhelmed by so many feelings that accompany bringing to life this body of work combined with all the support I have received on the Dandy Savage journey.
This thankyou list is not exhaustive, but I am deeply appreciative to the combined efforts of so many people, without whom this project would simply not exist.
Thankyou…
To the people of Papua New Guinea for having me and for the PNG Surfaris team for taking me to places I have never seen before.
The world class designers who brought the book into existence Christina Nizar at Christina Nizar Design Inc in New York and Christopher Mackenzie at UNLMTD Agency in Brisbane .
To Rebecca Ross, Chris Bennie at the Walls Art Space, for not only supporting myself, but so many artists in the region.
Daniel Carroll at City of Gold Coast and Queensland Arts Regional Arts Development Fund for funding of Dandy Savage. Please see HERE for full acknowledgment of the RADF.
Tristan Schultz and Jay Jermyn for your ears and efforts in creative supporting material.
Virginia Rigney at Canberra Museum and Art Gallery for reading through my messy, hand-glued and handwritten draft but still saying, ‘do it’.
Sneak look at some portraits taken of myself for a project due in 2020.
Portraits taken by Christina Nizar at Rockaway Beach, New York.
So I oftentimes don’t know how I’ve come to be so fortunate, but I once again appreciate the experience afforded to me by being onboard the boat Myna in the Republic of Maldives. Actually, boat is an understatement. In the past, I have worn the broadest smile wedged in the leaking wooden hull of a small fishing boat, but Myna carries the title of being a yacht, and the joy of a hot shower after being in the ocean was a luxury I am not used to and did not take for granted.
Contrary to the title of this post, 2019 does not represent 50 years of Maldivian independence from the British Empire. Painted signs from 2015 commemorating the 1965 moment still covered much of Himmafushi island. The more I travel to surf and photograph, the more I am struck by the extent of Empire. The obvious necessity of ocean to perform surfing shares the same strength in the importance of ocean in the growth of Empire. Naval fleets like none the world had ever seen characterise the distance and breadth of the tentacles of European colonisation upon the globe and the capacity to extract goods (including slaves) for trade which funded events which are often represented as glorious achievements characterised independently of colonisation such as The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, were built on the back of repressed and subjugated people whose sovereignty was viciously stolen, oftentimes under the guise of salvation.
This of course is not new knowledge. My own experience of ‘post-colonialism’ (and the difficulty of the term coinciding with my existence as an Australian who respects the original custodians of the land on which I live, respecting the elders past, present and emerging, and that sovereignty was never ceded ) is how the extent of Empire would continue to impact the subjectivities of local people in the context of surf exploration as I have observed in my travels, forming a shared experience between groups of humans from opposite sides of the globe.
A unique moment in my Maldivian journey though revolved around the ‘learning to surf’ and gift of a surfboard to a small group of local Maldivian girls. Upon seeing some local boys learning to surf, I approached them to learn more about them, and asked them if the girls in the area surf too. They responded ‘no’ and that the ‘girls wouldn’t want to surf.’ At the time, a group of local girls were swimming in the shorebreak, and it seemed easy enough to ask them directly how they felt about surfing. Upon asking ‘do you like surfing?’, five young Maldivian girls unanimously responded, ‘yes!’, which was matched in vigour only by their response to the question of if they would like to try. Of course, this in itself is not a unique moment. What struck me profoundly was that modern surf culture has the capacity to create subjectivities in young girls (and boys) that transcend the reach of Empire, offering access to opportunity without necessitating outcome and creating expanded viewpoints on what is possible without requisite or reciprocated obligation. To document this I felt was extremely profound. Surfing, born in the Polynesian islands before European contact, was returning to local people in a different Ocean and in a manner where the act of surfing could be performed without European subjectivity. However, the reach of surf tourism (like that engaged in by myself) leads me to raise the question whether modern surf culture is expanding across the globe reflecting a sort of surfing imperialism. Or perhaps more pertinently, are people who perform surf tourism carrying their own subjectivities into the lands in which they travel, imparting imperialistic viewpoints which exist independently to the act of surfing itself?
You can see my photos from the Maldives here
I am currently in New York and despite a horrid common cold, I am enjoying immensely my time here. I have so far had the opportunity to visit the Whitney (selfie below), APEX art, Leslie Lohman Museum, Grey’s Gallery, Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Mathematics. Lot’s of ideas flowing. Let’s see where this goes…
I visited West Timor for the first time in 2018, and was thrilled to return in 2019 to continue with further photographs, research and exploration. I collected a number of artifacts from my travels which I will be using alongside a visual and auditory experience of this journey. I will have my head down building this small collection of art over the next months.
Forecast 15ft. On the day, 15-20ft.
Matt Aldridge, Terry Yang and their fellow big wave surfers at Uluwatu June 11 and 12.
I teamed up again with Matty, and I can say it's an honour to have such an incredible surfer put his trust in me to capture these epic days, and likewise, I know that linking up with Matty will be worth my time, everytime. I spent both days perched high above the action in the brutal Indonesian sun, perhaps the only time when I could say it was a preferable place to be than in the surf!
Looking forward to being part of this group art exhibition Friday May 3rd 5-8pm at RVCA Byron Bay.
Proceeds from the exhibition will be going to Doctors Without Borders to help with their urgent international humanitarian work.
The WSL Women’s World Surfing Tour was back in action for the first day of the 2019 season at Duranbah Beach this morning for the Boost Mobile Gold Coast Pro.
I could say that the women are surfing better than ever and it is worth watching every minute of their contest, but to me, that is a tired cliche that died the moment I saw Carissa Moore do an air…when she was 12. The women’s world tour in 2019 follows on years of building momentum, where absolute professional and elite level skills are being displayed, fostered by a tireless behind-the-scenes (small) army of women at the World Surf League who believe in the value of showcasing these talents as much as the surfers themselves believe in chasing world title glory.
So what is new in 2019? Well some obvious and not so obvious observations. Firstly, Isabella Nichols is making a statement. Currently number 1 on the WQS after a blistering Australian Summer, Isabella won the entry trials to the main event two days ago, and went out today to beat seven time world champion Stephanie Gilmore. Isabella has always shown prodigious talent, and it looks like her work with Surfing Australia’s physical trainer Joanna Parsonage is paying off as her surfing technique fuses effortlessly into her developing athletic physique.
The names Keely Andrew and Sage Erickson wouldn’t look out of place in the draw of any CT event. For 2019 though, these world-class surfers are not part of the main fixture of the world tour, but are injury replacements for Silvana Lima and Tyler Wright at this first event. Firstly, I have no doubts that these two exceptional ladies will find their way back again. Sage has already proven her metal by re-qualifying in the past, and Keely is one of the most industrious athletes in all of women’s sport. However, it is the underlying story here that I feel deserves attention. The current level of women’s surfing is worthy of a bigger tour. The qualifying tour is long, expensive and brutal, and I could easily name a dozen women who are world tour worthy (Alessa Quizon, Dimity Stoyle, Holly Wawn, Bianca Buitendag…just to name a few), but are relegated to spending tens of thousands of dollars chasing qualification, in a commercial and sponsorship landscape that crucifies the incomes of female non-tour competitors. So what does this mean in lay-mans terms? Simply, a professional male surfer who is not on the world tour still earns enough from sponsorship to support his career, whereas the overwhelming majority of females surfers who are not on tour do not. The WSL in awarding equal prize money to both men and women are setting the standards.
So this leads me to what I feel will be the biggest story of the Women’s World Tour in 2019. This year will have barrels, airs and world titles, but that will pale into insignificance compared to the overt and overwhelming momentum in the movement for equality that women in surfing are crusading for. 2019 will not be about a single surf story. It will be about the culmination of everyone’s stories, as small and great battles are fought from every corner of the surfing world.
So where does this leave us? It’s simple. Dads and Mums, put your daughters into surfing. Uncles and aunties, take your niece out into the ocean. Brothers, join your sister when she drags you out for a wave. Whether you are a professional athlete, a physio, an athlete manager, a creative agency director, a photographer, a surfboard shaper, a designer, a magazine editor or any other number of professions, know that as a female, you have a future in surfing doing these things, one that has been forged by many great women of the past and is continuing to be forged by countless everyday women whose regular lives belie the torrent of internal passion that is the rising swell of equality in the future.
One of the last, untouched, pristine environments on the planet is found in the south of Australia, the Great Australian Bight.
Majority state owned Norwegian oil giant Equinor has lodged an application to start drilling there, which is being described by activists as a totally unacceptable risk to the environment, the tourism sector and fisheries sector of South Australia.
I didn’t know much about the situation until recently. For example, I didn’t know that there are species of animals in the Bight found nowhere else on Earth. I also learned that other oil giants such as BP and Chevron had given up the idea of drilling here in 2016 and 2017, citing that is was not commercially viable. The project is supposed to bring 1500 jobs, but it risks many thousands more. What I found most confronting is that Equinor, the oil company in the spotlight, states openly and prominently on their website about their concerns and action on climate change and renewable energy, and actively working to ‘benefit societies around the world.’ When several tens of thousands of humans in the society they are attempting to extract from protest that their proposed actions are detrimental, to what justification can they believe in what they say they promote.
Over the weekend in Burleigh Heads, approximately four thousand people gathered to protest. I joined journalist Eleanor Knight in documenting the event, and we are looking forward to bringing a larger, independent perspective look at the human impact story of the issue in the near future.
Photos to come…
(Full disclosure: I had a commercial arrangement with Patagonia Australia to take photographs of the event)
It can sometimes be difficult to explain why a large number of us choose to live and surf in one of the busiest surf locations on the planet. Rainbow Bay has an almost secret but distinct community of surfers that call this part of the world home. A meeting place at all hours of the day, but in particular the late afternoon session, where the worries of the working day are washed away.
A chronological sequence of 130+ photos from late afternoon till after sun set.
Photographed with a Canon 1dxii, fixed focal length of approximately 62mm, exposure times ranging from 1/500 second to 1 second.
I am a big believer in staying sharp. Take your camera everywhere. Shoot what comes to mind. Stay sharp. But don’t oblige yourself to shoot sharp.
Gotham continues.
