Join independent maritime cultural curator and programmer Valentina Bydanova, and her photographic crew of RMIT early career artists; Daniel Walton, Karmen Gibson and James Moore, to launch this new photographic exhibition and talk series that captures the Victorian commercial fisheries industry from boat to wholesale seafood market, and to the plates of Melbourne’s leading seafood restaurants. Drawing from the genres of social documentary photography, Dutch and Cubist still life painting, these works aim to generate a new maritime cultural consciousness and discourse for Melbourne by making marine space and issues visible, through the communicative power of the image.

In the context of recent cuts to commercial fishing in Port Phillip, the works bring to light an industry the public hardly knew existed, and comment on relationships between people and the marine environment. Presenting alongside Valentina will be the Photographic crew and select project collaborators representing the Melbourne Seafood Centre, local fishing enterprises and head chefs from Hazel, Bacash and the Atlantic restaurants.

But.

This is not just an exhibition. This is not just a lecture. This is a case study proposing a new way to create art and cultural programs that connect a new generation of creators, storytellers, knowledge holders and the public with local waterways and established maritime organisations. Through our approach, we believe that waterways can be positioned as cultural theatres at the forefront of innovation and engagement in Melbourne.

We need your feedback and critique on this.

Valentina Bydanova, 0425 795 547