Head On Photo Festival, Australia’s leading annual photography event, today announced the full program of exhibitions and events, including a major activation of Bondi Beach. Taking place from 19 – 28 November 2021, the program includes over 60 outdoor exhibitions at Paddington Reservoir Gardens and Bondi Beach, six large-scale photo boxes displaying the best of the Festival and a series of talks and workshops. Following the success of the Head On 2020 digital festival, an online Open program will bring a series of talks and workshops virtually to audiences across the country and the world.

The 12th edition of the Festival will feature an increased physical footprint along Bondi Beach Promenade with 52 exhibitions spanning 600 metres alongside six large-scale photo boxes. The exhibitions by international and Australian photographers explore stories, places and cultures from around the world.

For the first time, the Festival will feature an exhibition of emerging First Nations photographers from the mentorship program First Sight designed by the Head On Foundation. The program brought together Indigenous emerging photographers from all around the country, and this exhibition is a culmination of the project, showcasing their work that explores identity, culture and artistic vision.

A series of free talks, conversations and workshops will be presented outdoors with COVID-safe protocols at Paddington Reservoir Gardens, including talks by exhibiting artists, workshops to hone skills and a special sunrise Instameet at Bondi Beach.

Highlight exhibitions include:

• The Australian premiere of internationally acclaimed South Africa based photographer Roger Ballen’s series Roger the Rat. While in keeping with his uncanny, black and white aesthetic, known as Ballenesque, the series sees Ballen create a new persona to explore the human psyche and forces that make us who we are, including those we repress and never celebrate.
• Australian photographer and former DJ Bridgette Gower presents the world premiere of Disco Bugs. Drawing inspiration from the lights and laser beams she danced under in nightclubs around the world, she casts the bugs as revellers in their own dance floor playground.
• Celebrated American photographer, writer and filmmaker Neil Kramer presents the Australian premiere of his new series Quarantine in Queens. Offering a personal commentary on caregiving, love and family responsibility, the series shines a comedic lens on Kramer’s quarantine experience living in Queens with his 86-year- old mother from Florida and his ex-wife from Los Angeles during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic in March 2020.
• The world premiere of Kurds Open Wounds by Kurdish photographer and former refugee Younes Mohammad, a long-term project documenting the sacrifices of Kurdish Peshmerga in the fight to put down ISIS. Mohammad spoke with several hundred Peshmerga and took intimate portraits of the wounded fighters and their families to illustrate the stories of immense suffering from their battles and ongoing struggles to navigate post-conflict life.
• The Australian premiere of The Everyday Projects’ internationally acclaimed group exhibition Women On The Move, featuring the work of female photographers documenting the stories of women migrants across the world and the specific challenges they face before fleeing their home country, during their journey, and when resettling. The exhibition includes Nichole Sobecki’s incredible images highlighting the catastrophic impact of ongoing civil war and climate change on Somalia.
• Emerging First Nations artist, dancer and storyteller Lowell Hunter’s work exploring the relationship that we have with country.  Using his feet with the same foot movements he was taught through Traditional dance movements his people have practised for countless generations, Hunter carves patterns into the sand and captures the resulting works with drone photography. His artworks tell stories of family, identity and connection.
  
• Michaela Skovranova’s End of the world documenting the melting ice at the Antarctic Peninsula due to global warming. The series of photographs were taken in 2020, following the hottest temperature ever recorded for Antarctica at 18.3°C, which caused widespread melting on nearby glaciers. The images highlight the severe consequences that will ripple across the globe with the loss of sea ice.
• Uruguayan photographer Federico Estol’s Shine Heroes tells the story of the 3000 shoe shiners in La Paz, Bolivia. The shoe shiners have become a social phenomenon for wearing ski masks to conceal their identities to avoid discrimination. In their neighbourhoods, no one knows that they work as shoe shiners. They hide their work from school and even from their own families.
• Australian photographer Kadri Elcoat’s humorous series Postcards from the Edge, telling an irreverent story of a life lost during the lockdown in Melbourne. Elcoat recreated activities at home that were no longer possible in the real world, like going on holiday in her kitchen, abseiling from the stairs and camping in the living room with the TV projecting a view of a natural landscape.
• The Australian premiere of American photographer Mark Edward Harris’ The people in the forest capturing portraits of orangutans to advocate for better protection of the species, as the population has declined significantly over the past hundred years due to habitat destruction for palm oil plantations in Sumatra and Borneo. Without sustainable agriculture practices, orangutans will become the first great ape species to become extinct.
• Turkish-American photographer Nadide Goksun’s Swimmers, inspired by childhood memories of summer holidays on the Aegean seaside and exploring feelings of relaxation and pleasure experienced by people in the water. A sense of serenity and inner balance are evident across the project, with subjects floating, moving and hanging within a liquid abyss.
• Acclaimed Australia-based photographer Johannes Reinhart’s ethereal images for Dreaming of Mermaids taken at Perth Fringe World Festival’s mermaid tank represent the easily lost innocence of childhood and childhood perspective.

The Head On Photo Awards will also return in 2021, offering a prize pool of $70,000 to professional and amateur photographers worldwide. Judged by internationally renowned photographers, picture editors and curators, the Awards will present finalists across three categories, including Portrait and Landscape and the Head On Student Award, which is open to school years K-12. The 2021 Head On Photo Awards winners will be announced at the Festival’s virtual launch event on 19 November.

The Festival will continue to follow the NSW Health advice regarding COVID-19 restrictions and encourages visitors to monitor their social media channels and website for updates.

Full program available here: https://on.headon.com.au/program2021