Julie Millowick: Surrounding

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.

Presented as part of CAM Art Book Fair, in conjunction with the 2024 Melbourne Art Book Fair.

Speakers

Julie Millowick
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
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
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
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
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.

Join renowned photographic artist Julie Millowick, and curator and writer, Kyla McFarlane in conversation at Castlemaine Art Museum on Sunday 10 March, 11:30am.

Delving into the underlying themes of Millowick’s new exhibition, Surrounding, the conversation will traverse ecological and feminist photography, renewal and regeneration, and examine Millowick’s practice and new series of work through a lens that is both intrinsically local and environmentally global.

Free event, all welcome.
No RSVP required.

This event is presented as part of PHOTO 2024 International Festival of Photography.

Julie Millowick
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.

Kyla McFarlane
Dr Kyla McFarlane is a curator and writer from Aotearoa New Zealand, living and working in Naarm Melbourne. She is currently Academic Engagement Manager in the Museums and Collections Department at the University of Melbourne. Kyla has held key curatorial positions at the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; the Centre for Contemporary Photography; and Monash University Museum of Art in Melbourne. Over two decades, her curating and art writing has focussed primarily on lens-based, feminist, performative and emerging art practices in her region. An experienced public speaker, Kyla has presented conference papers, participated in and chaired panels, opened exhibitions and presented guest lectures at numerous venues in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Celebrate the exhibition opening of Julie Millowick: Surrounding on Saturday 24 February, 2pm.

Thank you to major sponsors, local winemaking co-operative Boomtown Wine, and local bar and brewery Love Shack Brewing Company for sponsoring wine and beer, alongside support from StrangeLove with non-alc beverages.

Free event. Please RSVP here.

Julie Millowick: Surrounding

Julie Millowick is a localist, an artist who is deeply embedded in the place where she lives. Over many years, Millowick has documented the environmental legacy of gold mining around her home near Fryerstown in Central Victoria. This strangely poignant landscape has been turned upside down through violent extraction—but it remains resilient and in the process of recovery.

Curated by Jenny Long, Surrounding exhibits a selection of Millowick's work including a new series seen for the first time. Millowick’s photographs show us the devastating effects of mining, drought, flood and invasive plants, but also remind us of the interconnectedness that links all parts of this ecosystem including its human occupants. This is a terrain which the artist loves, and which she sees with acute perception. It is a landscape full of complexity, a region with a terrible past, but in its capacity for renewal is also a place that offers a spark of hope for the future.