Ben Apfelbaum

NATIONAL INDIGENOUS ART FAIR : PART OF NAIDOC WEEK 2023

Barayagal Choir
Djiri Waague Dance Group

NAIDOC week, which runs til this Sunday,  got off to a great start with the two day National Indigenous Art Fair.

It truly was national as many of the arts and crafts people came from various communities in the Red Centre. 

Over the years  indigenous arts and crafts work have been ripped off and their copyright trampled on by unscrupulous fraudsters. 

At this Fair, however, one could see that the money from purchases was going straight in to the pockets of those who truly earned it with their hard work.

Music was also an art, and in the adjoining hall named Camp Ground, complete with sandpit, one  could enjoy the songs and dances of our  First Nations people.

The theme of this year’s NAIDOC week was RESPECT FOR THE ELDERS, and one could see that many of the elderly vendors were receiving this respect, both for their work and senior status. 

Text and photos by Ben Apfelbaum

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 Treborland. 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.