Featured artists Kyle Archie Knight, Ruth O’Leary and Katherine Griffiths join us at RMIT Gallery to discuss the use of the photobooth as a key creative tool in their arts practice, in conversation with Auto-Photo curator Catlin Langford.
Kyle Archie Knight is a Wiradjuri queer photographic artist based in Naarm (Melbourne). Knight’s keen interest in the mundane and humdrum suburbia resulted in his highly commended long-form and ongoing project, Cruising for a Bruising. With this project, he was a finalist in the Ballarat International Foto Biennale 2022 GradFoto exhibition and was later a core program artist in the Ballarat International Foto Biennale 2023.
Ruth O'Leary’s (based Djaara Country) practice interlaces feminist, subjective and spatial ideas played out through the expanded field of painted dresses, photography and performance. As a mother of three small children, O’Leary's experience of maternity informs all her work. She has exhibited in solo exhibitions (Bus Projects, C3, TCB) and participated widely in group shows (Lon Gallery, Mary Cherry, ACCA) across Australia.
Trained as a ceramic designer at Monash University, Katherine Griffiths has travelled overseas extensively. On a shoestring and frequently without a camera, Griffiths started using photobooths to document her travels. Once settled back in Melbourne, Griffiths continued to take photographs in the many black-and-white booths that were dotted around Melbourne, experimenting with masks, costumes, makeup and different backgrounds. Griffith’s collection now holds several thousand images and continues to expand.
Catlin Langford is a curator, writer and researcher specialising in photography. She has held a range of curatorial and educational positions, including at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal College of Art, London among others.
Image credits: Ruth O’Leary, Photobooth portrait, 2010s, gelatin silver print © Ruth O’Leary and Kyle Archie Knight, from the series Cruising for a Bruising, 2021, gelatin silver print © Kyle Archie Knight