Award-winning Australian photographer Louise Whelan’s At Our Table exhibition is now on in Sydney as part of the Crave Food Festival, which runs for the month of October. Whelan’s images capture the diversity of Australia’s multi-cultural society, and are part of a larger photographic project for the State Library of New South Wales, All Australians, which documents 180 migrant communities living in that state.
The Library’s curator of photographs Alan Davies believes, “these photographs will enable future generations of Australians to have a visual record of early 21st century Australia and to appreciate the contribution of their forebears to our changing culture”.
Whelan says of her collection of images in At Our Table, “Many communities celebrate their culture through food so for me it was a natural extension of the All Australians project. Crave Food Festival’s director Joanna Savill loved the images and programmed the exhibition in this year’s festival”.
The photographs that feature in At Our Table have resulted through families wanting to share food with Whelan as an introduction to their culture. “I’ve been humbled by so many of the people I’ve met who have welcomed me, a total stranger, into their homes and cooked for me”.
Food can be a great icebreaker, says Whelan. “A Congolese family took me shopping at specialty shops and the market to prepare a traditional lunch for me before I even picked up my camera. And at a Sikh temple I ate with a thousand others who had come to pray – you need to eat before you enter the temple so your prayers are not distracted by the rumble of an empty stomach. In this instance the sharing of food was also about equality in the community”. And then there’s the Estonian family who didn’t speak very much English. They chose to cook traditional pastries for Whelan as a way of communicating.
Whelan says documenting these different ethnic groups has given her a tremendous insight into the lives of others, a privilege she acknowledges and one she has worked for tirelessly. Whelan has spent countless hours attending festivals and other public events, connecting with migrant and settlement agencies and liaising with specific cultural community groups to gain access.
“I am genuinely interested in other cultures and I am very honest in my approach. It has been a long process – taking the photo is the easy part. I’ve spent a lot of time establishing relationships and gaining trust. So many people have let me into their homes and given me an intimate view of their lives. There have been times when I’ve spent an entire day with one family to get a handful of shots. Often I will take portraits of the families also for their own use. And I always provide copies of the photos I’ve taken to those who have allowed me to be part of their lives, if only for a brief moment.”
“Food defines many communities. The New Year celebrations at the Khmer Temple, for example, started in family homes where food was prepared, placed in serving pots and then taken to the temple as an offering to the monks. Once the monks had eaten, they shared the food with the wider community.”
She says, “Many migrants want to show the outside world their lives, and to celebrate and share their culture. I’ve covered some fantastic cultural events and been exposed to communities I never knew existed. It has been, and continues to be, an extraordinary documentary project.”
At Our Table is on exhibition at The East Village Hotel in the inner-Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst. This ‘pub’ has a notorious history having been a watering hole for some of Sydney’s more infamous criminals in the late 1920s, a period known as the Razor Gang Wars. One such criminal was Tilly Devine, the Queen of Woolloomooloo, a ruthless madam who ran a number of brothels in the city. Whelan laughs at the notion of her colourful photographs hanging where gangsters once held court. “The walls of the hotel are now adorned with the beautiful multi-cultural faces of our people from the suburbs. I bet Tilly never thought this day would come,” she concludes.
At Our Table – Louise Whelan
Until October 26th
The East Village Hotel
234 Palmer Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010, Australie
Open daily.
