Sunday Arts Magazine

10 Jul 2022

Distant Shores – Linden New Art

Art Exhibition, Arts, Arts Festival, Sunday Arts Magazine

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Linden New Art presents DISTANT SHORES, a new exhibition project co-produced by Melbourne/Naarm-
based photographic artist Morganna Magee and curator Anna Monea. Developed in collaboration with members

from the local community, DISTANT SHORES combines documentary photography, family photos and written
testimony to tell the story of the migrant experience through themes of cultural connection, memory, longing and
loss. DISTANT SHORES commences Thursday 9 June with an opening reception Friday 10 June 6-8pm,
and will run until Sunday 31 July 2022 in the Linden Projects Space.
For DISTANT SHORES, Magee and Monea worked with recently arrived migrants, refugees and people
seeking asylum based in the City of Port Phillip municipality to create a series of photographic profiles
celebrating cultural heritage. Exploring each participant’s cultural ties to their homeland in the wake of the
disconnection imposed by the pandemic, Magee presents a personal image belonging to the participant
alongside their portrait, which, captured by Magee, recreates the original photograph in an Australian context.
Intimate, emotional and deeply insightful, DISTANT SHORES is a sensitive work that gently speaks to our
shared humanity.

Curator Anna Monea writes; “DISTANT SHORES explores the
cultural and personal links of each participant to their homeland
and how they have created a new life here in Australia. Migrants,
refugees and people seeking asylum leave their homelands for a
myriad of reasons, often horrific, but in many cases they have to
leave loved ones behind. If they are fortunate, they have
photographs – small mementos of their loved ones back home.
By presenting these images and recreating them within an
Australian setting, DISTANT SHORES offers insight into each
person’s life and how far they have travelled.”
Morganna Magee is a social documentary photographer and
educator whose photographic practice sits at the intersection of
storytelling and expanded documentary. To date her personal
work has examined the complexities around issues such as
disability, grief and womanhood. Magee’s images have appeared
in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Age, The Big Issue,
Art and Australia and many more. She is a founding member of
Lumina Collective, an organisation of award-winning female and non-binary photographic artists. Magee
lectures in Photo Imaging at Swinburne University.