Summary

Digital photographic version of the framed photographic print entitled 'Holding Ground with Lili Sigalas in the Bush' by Melbourne-based photographer Pia Johnson. It shows Pia leaning against an alcove wall viewing a historical photo from the Museum's collection (MM 139441) in an alcove at Immigration Museum, Old Customs House.

It is one of four photographs acquired by the Museum which featured in the 'Re-Orient: Reclaiming Spaces, Redefining Stories' displayed at Immigration Museum from March-August 2024. This was a site-specific performative self-portrait series by Pia.

The collection also includes four digital versions of the works. As a collective the works show Pia interacting with different locations within the Customs House (Long Room; first floor corridor; stairwell; first floor doorway), completed in 1876 and the site of the Immigration Museum since 1998. This particular work features an out of copyright historic image from the museum's collection (MM 139441). Each work features Pia engaging with the architecture in different ways.

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.

Physical Description

Digital photograph

Significance

'Re-Orient' was 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 used the Customs House (which houses the Immigration Museum) to explore post-colonial identity and migration. In 'Re-Orient', Pia took 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.

Pia's series also carefully selected images from the collection, donated by families including Babette Sigalas, whose mother Lili's portrait features in one of the works acquired by the museum, 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.

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