Summary

'Re-Orient: Reclaiming Spaces, Redefining Stories'' is a site-specific performative self-portrait series by Pia Johnson on display at the Immigration Museum at Old Customs House from 16 March till 11 August 2024.

Introduction:

'Re-Orient' is a site-specific performative self-portrait series by photographer and artist Pia Johnson working and creating on the unceded lands of the Woi Wurrung, Boon Wurrung and Dja Dja Wurrung peoples. Pia uses the Customs House (which houses the Immigration Museum) to explore post-colonial identity and migration.

Pia reflects:

'As a female Eurasian Australian artist, I 're-orient' myself through the physical spaces of the museum, its collection and architecture. The photographs investigate how we understand our transnational communities and stories, negotiate our collective histories and question how place can shift our sense of belonging across time.'

'My practice stems from my mixed cultural identity of Chinese Italian Australian heritage, and is concerned with issues of cultural identity, difference and otherness. Through artistic residencies like this one at Museums Victoria, my artwork engages with memory, cultural spaces and performance to contribute to the complex transcultural landscape we live in.'

Customs House, Migration and New Interpretations:

The Customs House is a neo-classical building, constructed over 150 years ago on unceded Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung lands. It was, and still is, an act of dispossession, and a statement of colonising power and economic control - of the people who did business here, and the people who were interviewed, welcomed, processed or rejected here.

For over 25 years these spaces of beauty and tension have provided a home for the joyful, sorrowful, hopeful and resilient stories of First Peoples, migrants, and their descendants.

In 'Re-Orient', photographer Pia Johnson takes the Customs House as her palette, on which to assert herself, and her cultural and gendered identities. Her self-portraits ask timely questions of this building and interrogate multiple layers of meaning including colonisation, empire, and White Australia.

Reframing Museum Collections:

A closer inspection of some of Pia's portraits reveals cherished migrant family photographs and documents from the Museum's collection.

Pia has carefully selected images donated by the Sigalas, Gung and Papadimitropoulos/Birthisel families, and with permission, used them as aids to challenge these spaces. Pia invites us to see the people in the photos differently, and consequently, the Customs House itself. Shared migration journeys and experiences connect them all. They represent new possibilities for a building steeped in history - and a contested past.

Artist Biography:

Pia Johnson is a photographer, visual artist, curator and lecturer, who has exhibited across Australia and internationally, and is collected in private and public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria. Her work has been a finalist in many photography awards including the National Photographic Portrait Prize, Olive Cotton Award, Bowness Photography Prize, Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award among others.

Known as one of Australia's distinctive performance photography and portrait artists, Pia has commissions from all the major and small to medium performing arts organisations in Australia. Pia holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts from University of Melbourne and has a Doctorate in Fine Arts from RMIT University.

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