The Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery will launch its 2025 season next month with an exhibition that focuses on the strength and diversity of contemporary photography in Australia.

The exhibition de-centre re-centre, presented in collaboration with Perth Centre for Photography and Perth Festival,  will showcase works from local and interstate artists including Brenda L Croft, Taloi Havini, Gerwyn Davies, Amos Gebhardt, Tace Stevens and Nuriah Jadai.

Deploying and disrupting conventions of portraiture and landscape, artists explore place and belonging in First Nations, diasporic and queer communities.

LWAG director Theo Costantino said the artworks assert the presence and centrality of their subjects while navigating the politics of visibility.

“de-centre re-centre explores the survival and connectedness of communities despite the marginalising forces that seek to erase or diminish them,” Costantino said.

“The artists in the exhibition employ photographic media in a variety of ways but share common threads: a deep engagement with place; identity and belonging; and the use of photography to challenge dynamics of visibility and power.”

Featured works include Fragility by Naomi Hobson, Rabbit God by Scotty So and works from The University of Western Australia Art Collection such as Forest, an immersive series of 16 silver gelatin prints by Simryn Gill.

Participatory project The Community Reading Room by Torika Bolatagici features a curated library of books by First Nations, Black and global Indigenous writers.

The project was developed as a response to the experiences of practitioners and students who were exhausted by a monocultural art curriculum that ignored their presence, excluded their historical contributions and contemporary reference points.

The Community Reading Room challenges the systemic exclusion of people of colour, particularly women, from institutions of knowledge and makes space for critical reflection, self-determination and healing.

The exhibition is accompanied by a public program of artist talks and events and opens on Friday 14 February from 6pm to 8pm and runs until May 3.

The gallery is open to the public Tuesday to Saturday from 11am to 4pm and admission is free. For more information and to register for the opening night visit the LWAG website.

Images above: Gerwyn Davies, Bandit, 2023, archival pigment print, 85 x 150cm,courtesy of theartist, Jan Murphy Gallery and Michael Reid Gallery. Scotty So, Rabbit God, 2022, digital photograph, 150 x 100cm,TheUniversity of Western Australia Art Collection, Leah Jane Cohen ArtBequest, 2024,courtesy of the artist and MARS Gallery. Naomi Hobson, Fragility, 2024, pigment print on archival cotton ragpaper, 174 x 116.5cm, The University of Western Australia ArtCollection, Leah Jane CohenArtBequest, 2024.