In a year that marks the 50th anniversary of the United Nations’ International Women’s Year, the Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh) presents a bold and resonant exhibition that looks to the past while speaking powerfully to the present. Protest is a Creative Act opens on Saturday 7 June 2025, offering a timely meditation on protest, photography, and the enduring power of collective resistance. The exhibition runs until 31 August at MAPh’s Wheelers Hill gallery.
Curated by Kelly Gellatly, former Director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, and Angela Connor, MAPh’s Senior Curator, the exhibition brings together the work of over 50 women and non-binary artists whose practices span more than five decades. Drawn from personal archives and significant national collections—including the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Art Gallery of Ballarat, and MAPh itself—the exhibition foregrounds photography as a powerful tool of creative and political expression.
This is no traditional historical survey. Instead, Protest is a Creative Act stages an intergenerational conversation: between past and present, artist and audience, image and action. It reveals how photography has not only documented protest but also performed it—imagining new futures, resisting oppressive systems, and amplifying marginalised voices.
“While certainly far from perfect, second-wave feminism and the corresponding Women’s Art Movements that emerged at the time changed our society,” reflects guest curator Kelly Gellatly. “Artists brought feminist ideology and vision to their practice, creating work that championed and agitated for change. In photography, they often documented those fighting for justice or presented alternatives to patriarchal norms.”
Many of the themes tackled by artists in the 1970s remain deeply relevant today—issues such as the body, sexuality, race, national identity, and environmental degradation. What has changed is the lens through which these subjects are explored. Emerging artists in the exhibition extend these conversations through digital media, performance, installation, and collective practices, building on the foundations of their predecessors while infusing them with new urgency and perspectives.
The result is a richly textured exhibition where iconic historical works sit in dynamic dialogue with contemporary responses. Pioneering photographers such as Carol Jerrems, Ponch Hawkes, Sue Ford, and Destiny Deacon appear alongside new voices including Jess Schwientek, Eden Menta and Janelle Low, Salote Tawale, Kawita Vatanajyankur, and others. These works are at once personal and political, exploring the intersections of art, identity, and activism.
Protest is a Creative Act features a diverse and powerful roster of participating artists: Sophie Cassar, Miriam Charlie, Virginia Coventry, Mary Cox, Brenda L. Croft, Destiny Deacon, eX de Medici, Sandy Edwards, Bonita Ely, Liss Fenwick, Sue Ford, Juno Gemes, Viva Gibb, Helen Grace, Janina Green, Ponch Hawkes, Siri Hayes, Amrita Hepi, Alana Hunt, Carol Jerrems, Ellen José, Laresa Kosloff, Rosemary Laing, Honey Long & Prue Stent, Angela Lynkushka, Ruth Maddison, Alex Martinis Roe, Viv Méhes, Eden Menta & Janelle Low, Jill Orr, Wendy Rew, Elvis Richardson & Virginia Fraser, Therese Ritchie, Jess Schwientek, Tara Shield, Tina Stefanou, Salote Tawale, Kawita Vatanajyankur, and Jemima Wyman.
“This exhibition is not an exercise in nostalgia,” Gellatly adds. “The inclusion of more diverse voices demonstrates our progress, yet many of the issues explored by today’s artists echo those from forty or fifty years ago. I hope the exhibition encourages visitors to reflect on what matters most to them—and on what is still worth fighting for.”
Themes of friendship, community, and solidarity weave throughout the exhibition. Whether documenting collective action or engaging in collaborative methods themselves, these artists show that protest often begins with connection—with each other, with place, and with history. Protest is a Creative Act reminds us that resistance is not solely about opposition; it is also about care, imagination, and the act of creating a more just world.
For Gellatly, whose curatorial career began in photography and spans over 25 years, the exhibition is a full-circle moment. Her experience across major institutions—National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Australia, Heide Museum of Modern Art, and the University of Melbourne—has shaped a curatorial approach deeply attuned to feminist and photographic histories. In 2021, she founded the consultancy Agency Untitled, and in early 2025 co-founded the Melbourne Art Print Fair.
Together with Angela Connor, she has curated an exhibition that is as politically charged as it is artistically compelling. Protest is a Creative Act reminds us that protest doesn’t always unfold on the streets. Sometimes, it begins in darkrooms, behind the lens, or in the quiet defiance of making art in a world resistant to change.
Exhibition Details
Protest is a Creative Act
Exhibition Dates: 7 June – 31 August 2025
Opening Event: Saturday 7 June, 1–3pm
Venue: Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh), 860 Ferntree Gully Road, Wheelers Hill, VIC
Curated by: Kelly Gellatly and Angela Connor
