Ben Apfelbaum

FIRST NATIONS EXHIBITIONS @ BARANGEROO

The Barangaroo headland presents the First Nation’s cultural experience comprising of two exhibits, Wellama and Future Dreaming. 

Wellama (meaning ‘to come back’ in local language) is a ten minute audio visual artwork at the entrance of the Cutaway in Barangaroo Reserve. 

The work by Alison Page and Nik Lachajczak is a contemporary reimagining of  “Welcome To Country’ and is a celebration of ritual ceremony and story practiced on Gadigal lcountry since time immemorial and pays respect to the traditional custodians of this land.

On the stargazers lawn are two giant sculptural pieces shaped in the words Hope and Change which face each other 

‘Future dreaming’ is by Jacob Nash who has created a space between them – Hope and Change.

These two words according to Jacob Nash stand in the landscape, sitting on stolen land. 

The space is a place to gather, a piece of acknowledgement, truth telling and commitment into the future.

The words covered in highly reflective mirrors such as when you stand directly in front, they seem to disappear into the landscape. A change of perspective looking diagonally across them brings them into sharp contrast, clearly discernible.

If you visit this exhibit there is a detailed explanation of how Jacob felt whilst working on this piece, and what message he hoped to convey, by the powerful imagery of these two word sculptures. 

Jacob is a descendant of the Daly River people, west of Darwin and has spent the last twenty years living, working, and creating across the Eora Nation

Both exhibits are installed until the 30th January, 2022 is a free installation open from 8am to 8pm seven days a week.

 

 

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.