Now showing at Castlemaine Art Museum, Julie Millowick: Surrounding features a selection of work from 36 years of documenting the Central Victorian post goldrush environment around the home of the artist, including a new series seen for the first time. In this exhibition, Millowick captures the beauty of her surrounding in tumult and recovery. This strangely poignant landscape has been turned upside down through violent extraction – but it remains resilient and offers capacity for renewal.
Produced on the occasion of the exhibition, Surrounding by Julie Millowick is a publication that extends her photographic documentation. The publication features an introduction by the artist, an essay by exhibition curator Jenny Long, full-colour photographs, and an interactive map. The publication showcases Millowick’s diverse explorations of her environment, using film, pinhole camera, photogram, lumen, cyanotype and digital capture.
In this panel conversation, hear from artist Julie Millowick and the team behind the publication: Jac DiBlasi, Designer; Jessie DiBlasi, Producer; Rob Gale, Image Editor; and Stephanie Holt, Editor. Chaired by CAM Director, Naomi Cass, the conversation will explore the publishing process, considering artistic and design sensibilities from concept to completion, collaborating as a publishing team, and realising the publication in tandem with a major exhibition.
Julie Millowick Speaker
Julie Millowick began her photographic career working in the darkroom of Athol Shmith, John Cato and Peter Barr. After completing her studies at Prahran College of Advanced Education, she worked as a press and public relations photographer, after which the direction of her commercial folio changed and she worked as a corporate industrial photographer. Julie achieved early recognition for her photojournalism when she exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria and Australian Centre for Photography in 1977 in Australian New Work. She has exhibited and published regularly since then, with work held in major photography collections in Australia and internationally. In 1993 she exhibited work in the exhibition Intimate Lives with Sally Mann, Nan Goldin and Jaques Henri Lartigue at the International Fotofeis in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Jac DiBlasi Speaker
Jac DiBlasi is a graphic designer with a passion for publication design with a Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Communication Design from Swinburne University of Technology. She has a demonstrated history of working in the events services industry across Melbourne festivals and institutions including Fed Square and the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre (MCEC). Her superpower is her keen ability to collaborate with clients and artists, identifying the perfect format and style to enhance a published narrative for print outputs of 250 to 200K. Jac employs design elements that add to the reader experience, such as the fold out guiding map included in Surrounding or the section for readers to document their own family recipes in Nonna to Nana.
Jessie DiBlasi Speaker
Jessie DiBlasi is a multidisciplinary artist and writer with a proven track record of socially engaged practice. Her work explores and celebrates tradition, history, and connection through visual and practical application, often employing the photobook along with interactive programming to engage audiences. Her work has been awarded and recognised nationally and internationally through awards, residencies and collections that include the State Library of Victoria and National Library of Australia and has been selected for art prizes including The Blake Prize, the Muswellbrook Art Prize, Maggie Diaz Photography Prize for Women, MAMA Art Foundation National Photography Prize, and Iris Award.
Rob Gale Speaker
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Rob Gale is a graduate of Prahran college who has worked as a freelance commercial photographer nationally and internationally for over 35 years. Currently, he teaches photography at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), where he has taught photography and digital postproduction to vocational students for more than 16 years. Outside of teaching, Rob continues to work on independent projects, most recently completing pre-press production for Michael Coyne’s internationally award-winning book about village life around the world Villages: Hearing the Grass Grow’. Rob has had work exhibited at the Ballarat International Photo Biennale and as a finalist in the Moran Photographic prize, Aussie Street Awards, Head on Awards and The Blake Prize.
Stephanie Holt Speaker
Stephanie Holt is a Fryerstown-based editor, who specialises in arts and culture publishing. She is current Chair of the Institute of Professional Editors, Australia and New Zealand, and works part-time with Overland journal and the History Council of Victoria, as well as maintaining a freelance editing practice.
Naomi Cass Speaker
Curator and writer, Naomi Cass is Director, Castlemaine Art Museum (CAM). On the cusp of her CAM appointment in 2019, she curated the exhibition Capital for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. Her most recent previous role was Director, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy 2004–2019.