For much of photography’s 200-year history, women have appeared as subjects rather than authors. Three photographers discuss how photography can challenge imposed narratives and create space for women’s self-definition, intimacy, resistance and the visibility of trauma.
This session brings together three photographers whose work challenges the ways women’s bodies, identities and experiences are represented. From the politics of the nude body, to celebrity before the performance begins, to the difficult recovery of buried trauma, each photographer looks beyond familiar images and imposed narratives.
The discussion will explore how photography can become a space for self-definition, intimacy and resistance. What does it mean to photograph someone before they put on a mask? How can an image challenge the viewer’s assumptions about the body? And how might photography help make silence, memory and inherited trauma visible?
Includes discussion of trauma and abuse.
Note: All tickets include light refreshments and drinks served from 5pm.
Presented in partnership with the Embassy of France in Australia.
Secure your tickets today: https://events.humanitix.com/head-on-conversations-2026-celebrating-200-years-of-photography
Presenters:
Dr Judith Nangala Crispin (NSW, Australia): Judith is a published poet, editor and photographic artist. Her visual work focuses on Lumachrome glass printing, a technique she has developed from alternative methods including sun printing, chemigram and cliché-verre. Judith’s work responds to her Indigenous ancestry and includes themes of displacement, genocide and the loss of connection with nature.
Julia SH (USA/Sweden): Julia is a Swedish-born, Los Angeles-based photographer. Rooted in sculpture, painting, and dance, her practice challenges the visual codes imposed on women’s bodies, asking audiences to look beyond judgement and narrow ideals of beauty.
Julia’s work features in Head On Photo Festival 2026 at Paddington Reservoir Gardens.
Veronique Via (France): Award- winning French photographer Veronique photographs public figures before their performed identities take over, seeking intimacy beneath celebrity and self-presentation. Veronique’s work features in Head On Photo Festival 2026 at Bondi Beach promenade.
Virginia Morini (Italy): Virginia explores the surreal beneath everyday reality through documentary practice. Examining family, secrecy, sexuality, religion, and abuse, Virginia turns family trauma and silence into image-making as testimony.
Virginia’s work features in Head On Photo Festival 2026 at Paddington Reservoir Gardens.
Moderator: Anita Schwartz (NSW, Australia), is General Manager and at Head On Foundation and Head On Photo Festival, where she has worked since 2010. She oversees festival programming, and operations. With qualifications in pharmacy and management, Anita brings extensive experience across arts management, programming and events. Presented in partnership with the Embassy of France in Australia.
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