Seventh Gallery
155 Gertrude Street
Fitzroy Vic 3065
Australia
Tuesday 18 July - Saturday 29 July 2006
Sixth Leica/CCP Documentary Photography Award Exxibition
Centre or Contemporary Photography, Melbourne then on tour 2008.
Pedalling contradiction
At first these large, square crisply focused photo-portraits look to be studies of character and mood. Heads and eyes lowered, the subjects are linked by common expressions of fatigue, concentration or distracted reverie. But this is no glossy postmodern catalogue of melancholia. The exhibition's title reveals its clever twist: these are, in fact, head-and-shoulders close-ups of cyclists taken in the streets of Beijing. The varied garb of the riders, youngsters on mobile phones, an old man with the communist red star on his American-style baseball cap all neatly capture the contradictions of contemporary China.
- David Hansen. The Age, Melbourne 21/7/2006. Link to article
From the catalogue “Sixth Leica/CCP Documentary Photography Award
“Simple in conception, but profound in effect, Laki Sideris’ photo essay concerns the “continuous and inexhaustible parade, a continual evolving face of China”. This study of private contemplation in a within public space arises from Sideris’ documentation of cyclists on the streets of Beijing. Carefully framing only the upper body, the bike is not visible. Weight is focused down through the shoulders, supporting the heads deep in thought. Most striking is the stillness Sideris finds in movement. Engaged in ordinary activity, there is beauty in these figures with natural and artificial light softly articulating their faces...”
- Noami Cass, Director, Centre or Contemporary Photography, Melbourne.