Susanne Helene Ford (19 March 19436 November 2009) was an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

feminist photographer who started her arts practice in the 1960s. She was the first Australian photographer to have a solo exhibition at the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...

in 1974 with ''Time Series''. A book of her portraits of women 'A Sixtieth of a Second' was published in 1987. Her photographs and eclectic practice was displayed in an exhibition at the

in 2014.

Biography

Sue Ford was born Susanne Helene Winslow on 19 March 1943, in St Kilda,

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

. She was an Australian

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

photographer. Ford had a continuing interest in Indigenous issues, travelling widely and photographing in remote areas of Central Australia. In 1988, she travelled to

Bathurst Island, Northern Territory Bathurst Island () (, ) is one of the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory off the northern coast of Australia along with Melville Island. __TOC__ Description The largest settlement on Bathurst is Wurrumiyanga (known as Nguiu until 2010), ...

, to conduct photography workshops with Tiwi women. She moved between Bathurst Island and the Barunga Festival (

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

and Melbourne) to photograph events connected to the bicentenary of Australia. Between 1990 and 1992, Ford's process shifted from direct camera work to a series of

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

images. Each collage was gridded up and each grab section later printed at A3 size to create large format grid images. She also worked with a series of ink and

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting method"Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to the ...

paintings related to her impression of the

Cook Islands The Cook Islands is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of 15 islands whose total land area is approximately . The Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers of ocean. Avarua is its ...

, Bathurst Island and the deserts in the Northern Territory. In 1991 Ford bought a house in Marlborough Street, Balaclava, Melbourne where she lived until 2009. She made a second trip to Bathurst Island to work with the Tiwi women in the same year. Ford died in 2009 in her Balaclava home on 6 November, surrounded by her family and friends. In 2010, the Sue Ford archive was established. In 2011 Ford's last major body of work ''Self Portrait with a Camera,'' 1960–2006, was exhibited at

Monash Gallery of Art The City of Monash is a Local government areas of Victoria, local government area in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne with an area of 81.5 square kilometres and a population of 200,077 people in 2016. Hi ...

, Melbourne. It involves a conflation and compression of time. It includes some of Ford's earliest photographs alongside her most recent and deeply personal yet ordered and objective at the same time. The earliest photographs in the series are from when Ford was first introduced to the camera.

Early life

The earliest photographs are from when Ford was first introduced to the camera. Ford was given her first camera in her late teens to take with her on a family holiday to Europe. It was on her return in 1961 that Ford found employment as a delivery girl for Sutcliffe photographers in Melbourne and working as a

darkroom A darkroom is used to process photographic film, make Photographic printing, prints and carry out other associated tasks. It is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of light-sensitive photographic materials, including ...

assistant. In 1962, she enrolled in a photography course at

RMIT The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (abbreviated as RMIT University) is a public research university located in the city of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia., section 4(b) Established in 1887 by Francis Ormond, it is the seventh-o ...

, she was only one of two females in a class of thirty students. Ford completed only the first year of a three-year course. She then rented a studio in

Little Collins Street Little Collins Street is a minor road, street in the Melbourne central business district, Victoria, Australia. The street runs parallel to and to the north of Collins Street, Melbourne, Collins Street and as a narrow one way lane takes on the ...

, Melbourne with a friend Annette Stephens, a fellow RMIT student and friend. This was above a small cafe. Ford also documented her children extensively and experimented with concepts for children's books, pairing images and text in imaginative narrative sequences that were often connected by a theme of escape. In the late 1960s Ford created several bodies of work that contained simplex montages,

photogram A photogram is a Photography, photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow im ...

s and layers negatives, received hours of darkroom experimentation. The photo collage ''Man off the moon'', c. 1969 critiqued the first moonwalk by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

astronauts

Neil Armstrong Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aerospace engineering, aeronautical engineer who, in 1969, became the Apollo 11#Lunar surface operations, first person to walk on the Moon. He was al ...

and

Buzz Aldrin Buzz Aldrin ( ; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three extravehicular activity, spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission, and was the Lunar Module Eag ...

. Using images shot on a television screen, Ford places her hand into the scene, directing the astronauts like a puppet in a way that asserts her own presence and questions intention of the Americans on the lunar landscape.

Family life

Ford moved to Dunmoochin, Cottles Bridge for a brief period, then to Laughing Waters Road,

Eltham Eltham ( ) is a district of South London, southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is east-southeast of Charing Cross, and is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. The three ...

with her spouse Gordon Ford. Their first home was destroyed by bushfire, and they then moved to Pitt Street in Eltham and built a mud brick studio there including a darkroom, they also conducted a short lived child portrait business at the same time as working for Eltham Film Productions. In 1967 her daughter Emma Ford was born. Then in 1968, her son Ben Ford was born. In 1970, Gordon built a new mud brick house for the family at Laughing Waters Road. In 1972 they moved into the new mud brick house at Laughing Waters Road. In 1975 Ford moved to Sydney, but travelled regularly back to Melbourne. In 1980, they returned to

Carlton North Carlton North is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Melbourne and Yarra local government areas. Carlton North recorded a population of 6,177 at ...

, Melbourne. At this time Ford was active as a founding member of Reel Women feminist filmmakers. Ford was a member of other feminist film co-operatives over her career, including: the Feminist Film Workers collective (1970s and 1980s) and the Women’s Film Unit in 1985.

Personal life

In 1982, Ford suffered a serious horse riding accident that resulted in a back injury; as a result Ford could not photograph for some time and commenced painting. Living in Williamstown from 1983 to 1985, Victoria. Melbourne. Ford travelled each winter to

Byron Bay Byron Bay ( Minjungbal: ''Cavvanbah'') is a beachside town located in the far-northeastern corner of New South Wales, Australia (in Bundjalung Country). It is located north of Sydney and south of Brisbane. Cape Byron, a headland adjac ...

, in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, making many friends and working on art projects. Ford dropped out of RMIT due to sexual harassment in the darkroom during her first year. She constantly turned the camera on herself, her family, friends and acquaintances for social and political ends. Her experimentation with technique and media including not only photography but film, video, painting, drawing and later printing was also connected, from the very beginning, by interest in the politics of representation. She also studied at the Victorian College of Arts (VCA) 1973–1974. In 1974, the NGV's display of ''Time Series'' 1962–74 constituted the first solo exhibition by an Australian photographer.

Education and career

Ford was one of two female to commence photographic studies in the newly established Certificate of Photography course at

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (abbreviated as RMIT University) is a public research university located in the city of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia., section 4(b) Established in 1887 by Francis Ormond, it is the seventh-o ...

in 1960. In 1962 she ran a photographic studio with her friend Annette Stephens. In 1973 she was awarded an Ilford Scholarship that provided for her to attend the

Victorian College of the Arts The Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) is the arts school at the University of Melbourne in Australia. It is part of the university's Faculty of Fine Arts and Music (FFAM). It is located near the Melbourne city centre on the Southbank campus ...

for postgraduate study from 1973–1974 in Melbourne. Documentation of Sue Ford's work can be found at the Women's Art Register.

Exhibitions

2004

* Solo Exhibitions ** Watter's Gallery, Sydney. * Group Exhibitions **NGV, Melbourne. **

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

, Canberra

2003

*Solo Exhibitions ** ARC ONE-Span, Melbourne *Group Exhibitions **NGV, Melbourne **

Australian Centre for the Moving Image ACMI, formerly the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, is Australia's national museum of screen culture including film, television, videogames, digital culture and art. ACMI was established in 2002 and is based at Federation Square in Melbo ...

, Melbourne

2002

*Solo Exhibitions **ARC ONE-Span, Melbourne *Grants ** Arts Victoria grant for the ''continuum series'' ** Melbourne City Council grant for ''continuum'' large-scale digital prints * Group Exhibitions ** ''Fieldwork'': Australia Art 1968–2002, NGV, Melbourne ** Berlin Film Festival, Germany

2000

* Group Exhibitions ** National Portrait Gallery, Canberra ** Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney ** Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne

1999

* Group Exhibitions ** Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane **

Heide Museum of Modern Art The Heide Museum of Modern Art, also known as Heide, is an art museum in Bulleen, Victoria, Bulleen, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. Established in 1981, the museum exhibits modern art, modern and contemporary a ...

, Melbourne * Solo Exhibitions * ''Somewhere in France 1917 '' :Watter's Gallery, Sydney; :

Parliament House, Canberra Parliament House is the meeting place of the Parliament of Australia, the Legislature, legislative body of Politics of Australia, Australia's federal system of government. The building also houses the core of the Executive (government), execut ...

1998

*Group Exhibitions **

, Melbourne ** Monash University Gallery of Art, Melbourne * Solo Exhibitions **

Queensland Art Gallery The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only away. The Queensland Art Galle ...

, Brisbane

1997

* Solo Exhibition **

Australian Centre for Photography The Australian Centre for Photography (ACP) was a not-for-profit photography gallery in Darlinghurst, Sydney, Australia that was established in 1973 and which also provided part-time courses and community programs. One of the longest running c ...

, Sydney

1995

* Solo Exhibitions ** Watter's Gallery Sydney ** Monash University Gallery, Melbourne * Group Exhibitions ** Watter's Gallery, Sydney ** National Gallery of Australia, Canberra ** Museum of the Northern Territory, Darwin **

, Brisbane

1994

* Solo Exhibition – Time Surfaces – Colour Laser Prints by Sue Ford – National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne *Group Exhibition ** ''Pictograms: Aspects of Contemporary Photographic Practice'' ::Touring Exhibition throughout Australia

1993

*Group Exhibition **''From the Empire's End: Nine Australian and Spanish Photographers'', Bathurst Regional Gallery

1972

* Film Woman in a House (1972) * Van Diemans Land to Video Land – ''An Exhibition of Colour Lazer Prints, and Paintings by Sue Ford''

1971

*Solo Exhibition – ''Metamorphoses Series,'' Hawthorn City Art Gallery, Yellow House, Sydney

1969

* Suburban Series of collaged photographs

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, Sue Australian feminists Australian photographers 1943 births 2009 deaths Photographers from Melbourne People from St Kilda, Victoria Women's Art Register artists