OPEN FROM 7TH AUGUST – 3RD SEPTEMBER, 2014 

A Tasmanian photo essay 2010-2013.

This body of work was shot with a Linhoff 5×4” film camera and a Hasselblad 120mm film camera.

Since 2010, I have travelled to Tasmania during the full moon phase. Drawn by the dark and broody landscape. The photo essay also combines a series of portraits of some interesting Tasmanians with a unique lifestyle, who are passionate about their work, place and what they create, some of which include gourmet food and wine producers, antique dealers, farmers, artists, historic house restorers and entrepreneurs, all of which are wonderful characters that I had the privilege to photograph.

The work is hand processed and printed by Susie, with the help and support of Chris Reid of Blanco Negro.

We are proud to have Brand Tasmania and Petuna as our sponsors for the launch of 'Van Diemans Light'

The Bogolubov Library is a focus for daily concerts in two chambers, and has an art gallery of world standard and a smaller space, both for curated exhibitions.  It houses an, art school, musical manuscript collections and holds regular lecture series.  It has connections with an orphanage and has outreach programs bringing music, art and culture to a hospice and a prison.

The Bogolubov gives free membership and is an intense focus on Moscow’s cultural existence. It also has an Australian Studies Club that highly values Susie Hagon and Darian Zam’s book which contains portraits of Australians and Faces of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina .

Copies of this will be given as prizes for excellence in endeavor’s and to visiting diplomats.

In November 2013 David Wansbrough, a committee member of the Australian Friends of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina organized the donation of the book ‘In The House of the Muses’ for the Russian Library for Arts.

David Wansbrough has travelled twice each year to Russia since 1993 where he was until recently a visiting professor. In the last three years he has had two solo art exhibitions of paintings in the Bogolubov Library and two in the Russian Museum of Education and two in the Zal of the Moscow Zoo. He has had eight of his books published into Russian translation with another in preparation. He received the Russian medal Man of Peace in 2013 and in 2012 was Global Eco Person.

He currently is working on a book on the explorer, scientist and ethnologist Miklouha Maclay.

 ©susie hagon photography 2014

Exton House Lake 2010

©susie hagon photography 2014

There is deep mistrust in the west about any intervention by the brass in civilian affairs. The history of unscrupulous coups and repressive juntas in Latin America and Africa may justify this view. It is however wrong to lump the events of 3 July in Egypt with those former military takeovers.

The intervention of the army was preceded by a campaign to withdraw confidence  from ex-president Mursi, which supposedly gathered over 20 million signatures from disaffected citizens. The days preceding his fall witnessed massive demonstrations, in which millions participated across the country. Those protests were not only fuelled by dissatisfaction with the day to day performance of the government but, more crucially by a loss of faith. The president and his regime could be said to have forfeited their legitimacy in the eyes of many of those who voted for them back in November, after he promulgated his notorious constitutional declaration. This act practically gave him immunity from accountability, semi-divine prerogatives and a tool with which to bring the judiciary to heel. He used those wide powers to hurry through a constitution which contained the seeds of a totalitarian religious state.

This is why liberals in Egypt and the millions who took to the streets consider the coup a chance for democracy. This statement may sound paradoxical but only if one makes the mistake of comparing ‘finished’ democracies like Britain and the U.S. with nascent ones like Egypt. Not infrequently in the history of the former, force has been used to lay the groundwork of democracy. The English army of Cromwell which stormed parliament also paved the way for parliamentary government by curbing the power of absolutism. The French revolution was no picnic, and America required a civil war to break the back of slavery. The curtailment of the rights of the Southern states at the time was undoubtedly an undemocratic act which, nevertheless, opened the door to broader participation.

There can be no democracy without democrats. It was fatal to entrust the liberalization of Egypt to the illiberal Moslem Brotherhood. The entanglement of religion and politics, at the root of their ideology, is nothing if not poisonous. Many in the West know that the Brotherhood only paid lip-service to freedom of speech and belief and that discrimination against women and minorities was the order of the day. To insist that their removal from power is a blow to democracy can only be called hypocritical.

Alexandria Crowds

This is what it was like yesterday, thousands and thousands of people , not only along the corniche but in every street….I went out at around six o’clock and could hardly believe what I saw, people from all different classes, rich and poor, all mingling, all sharing their grievances, children, people in wheel chairs ,loads of women, in burqa, veiled , in skin tight jeans and sleeveless tops with their hair flowing in the wind ,  chanting together “ERHAL”” Leave”  to Morsi. Rue Horreya was like a carnival promenade, people came out from the slums carrying slogans that read “ No electricity, no water, no bread, no solar, just leave”. It was a show of absolute human solidarity.

 We were not given the day off yesterday but , I was told, that no one came to work. Today, only a few of us are back at the BA. People are afraid that if they came to work, they would not be able to get back home . The streets in the morning were almost empty but the crowds will return in the afternoon…it is very hot outside right now but they will return.

Warm regards

Mona

Alexandria Egypt 30.6.2013

The Planetarium at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina 30.6.2013

The Corniche, Alexandria Egypt 30.6.2013

Some images I chose for the book are from the Transgender Photo Essay that I started documenting in 2011 with the Blud Diamind Society in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Aung San Suu Kyi's Burmese tomato fish curry is so good I have cooked it twice, Im looking forward to trying other recipes, the book is highly recommened! 

The Event

In celebaration of women

Julia Ross's home in Point Piper sparkled for the launch of SHARE a cookbook in celebration of our shared humanity for the charity Women for Women International.

The book includes dishes from world-class chiefs and influentional humanitarians with Aung San Suu Kyi, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sir Richard Branson, Nelson Mandela, Jamie Oliver, Annie Leonnox and a forward by Meryl Streep in support of women in war-torn zones.

SHARE is available in book stores and online.

www.womenforwomen.org
www.facebook.com/WFWIAus

 A small selection of images from my 'Van Diemans Light' photo essay.

A work in progress. 

So far I have photographed three catorgaries moonlight landscape, portraits and historic houses and ruins.

All the work has been shot on large and medium format, with my 5x4 Linhof and 120mm Hasselblad.. 

Martyn Cook launched the book and Professor Ross Steele was a great help and support throughout the afternoon, it could not have been done without them.

Thank you. 

Some pics from the day.

Martyn Cook, Susie Hagon and Professor Ross Steele.

Artist Kerrie Lester.

Glen Marie Frost and Amanda Nankervis.