Facing Australia is a nationally acclaimed photographic project, working to engage remote, regional and metropolitan communities & individuals through a creative community engagement process.
Since 2002 twenty three composite portraits have been created. The Face of Albury was a finalist in the inaugural Citigroup Portrait Prize and exhibited at the Art Gallery of NSW. In 2003 the project team was commissioned by the Brisbane City Council to create 8 faces of four diverse Brisbane suburbs; Inala, St Lucia, Sunnybank Hills and Nudge Beach. The final exhibition The Face of Brisbane formed a suite of exhibitions that opened the Museum of Brisbane in 2003/4.
The project began in Albury, New South Wales in 2002 from an initial grant from the Albury City Council; Facing Australia has grown to become one of Australia’s premier ongoing photographic projects.
Facing Australia creates composite male and female portraits based on current Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) census data. This census data is mined, establishing the proportionate age and ethnic profile of a chosen community. Individuals from that community are recruited, photographed and their images digitally layered to create a composite portrait of the census-determined male and female.
Facing Australiaputs a face to the numbers, a face to the place
Facing Australia is an ambitious project. It will create a series of faces representing a remote, regional and metropolitan location from each of Australia’s states and territories. 48 male and female composite portraits will be created accompanied by thousands of individual portraits. Using the individual portraits stored on the data base and ABS statistics two final images will be created: The Face of Australia.
Facing Australia can be seen as a visual social document: contributing to the national archive so as to inform generations to come on who we were in the early part of the 21st century.