Juno Gemes
Australian photographer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Juno Gemes (born 1944) is a Hungarian-born Australian activist and photographer, best known for her photography of Aboriginal Australians.[1] A performer, theatre director, writer and publisher, Gemes was one of the founders of Australia's first experimental theatre group The Human Body.
Juno Gemes | |
|---|---|
 Juno Gemes, 2025 | |
| Born | Juno Gemes 1944 Budapest, Hungary |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation | photographer |
| Known for | photographs depicting cultural and political struggle of Indigenous Peoples in Australia |
| Parents |
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Early life
Juno Gemes was born in 1944 in Budapest, emigrating to Australia with her parents Alex and Lucy Gemes[2] in 1949.[3]
Career
Summarize
Perspective
Theatre
Gemes studied at the University of Sydney and the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and graduated in 1964.[4] In 1968 Gemes directed The Human Body Australia's first experimental theatre group, established with Johnny Allen and Clem Gorman.[5][6] Some of The Human Body Performances at the Powerhouse warehouse in Haymarket, featured a geodesic light dome built by Jacky Joy Jacobson and Michael Glasheen from 5,000 light bulbs.[7] Gemes worked in theatre and film, and worked in London sporadically in the late 1960s and 1970s, where she wrote for the London-based underground newspaper International Times. While in London, Gemes performed in some of Yoko Ono's work including the avant-garde film Bottoms and a performance piece The scream at the Perfumed Garden.[8]
Photography
Gemes began exhibiting her photography in Australia in 1966, and held her first solo exhibition, "We Wait No More", in 1982.[9] In 1971, Gemes became involved with the Yellow House Artist Collective in Potts Point, Sydney.[3] Collaborating with another member of the Collective, landscape artist Mick Glasheen, to document traditional stories about Uluru.[7] They stayed in the Central Desert for six months in a geodesic dome seeking out the Pitjantjara elders in the area.[7]
Gemes is known for her photographs depicting the cultural and political struggle of indigenous peoples in Australia,[10][11] including land rights, the handing back of Uluru to the traditional owners, and the National Apology to the Stolen Generations in the Federal Parliament.[12] Gemes describes Nothing Personal by James Baldwin and Richard Avedon, which examines American culture including civil rights and the rise of black nationalism,[13] as an early influence in her work.[14] In 1976, Gemes photographed American civil rights leader James Baldwin on the rooftop of the Athenaeum Hotel in London.[15][10][16]
Under Another Sky, Juno Gemes Photography 1968–1988, a survey of Gemes work from over twenty years was exhibited in Budapest and Paris in the late 1980s.[1]
In 2018, Gemes told The Sydney Morning Herald her reason for taking up photography: "It was because I saw that Aboriginal people were invisible that I took up the camera." Much of her work has documented the Aboriginal rights and land rights movements,[14] from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy to 2008 when she was one of ten photographers selected to officially document the Apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples.[17]
Gemes has thirty works in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Australia.[18] Her papers are held at the National Library of Australia and the Mitchell Library of the State Library of New South Wales.[19]
Publishing
In 1986 Gemes and her partner Australian poet Robert Adamson[17] co-founded, with writer Michael Wilding, independent publishing company Paper Bark Press (sometimes spelt Paperbark[20]), which published Australian poetry. Wilding left the company in 1990, and Gemes and Adamson continued to run the company[21] until 2002.[20]
In 1997 Adamson and Gemes collaborated on the publication The Language of Oysters.[22]
In January 2025 Gemes published Until Justice Comes: Fifty Years of The Movement for Indigenous Rights. PHOTOGRAPHS 1970 - 2024, through Upswell Press. [23]
Personal life
Gemes' son, Orlando Gemes, born in London in 1975, is pictured with Essie Coffey OAM in a portrait at the National Portrait Gallery. He travelled with his mother as she documented Aboriginal people and activism.[24]
Selected exhibitions
- 1982, 5 – 26 November: We wait no more Hogarth Gallery & Apmira[9]
- 1985, 26 October: Gemes created a visual document of the historic Uluru Handback Ceremony at Uluru NT.[25]
- 1989, from 19 December: Literary Images, Jacqueline Mitelman, Virginia Wallace-Crabbe and Juno Gemes. Special collections section, library of the Australian Defence Force Academy, launched by Robin Wallace-Crabbe[26]
- 2005, 30 June to 30 November: Our Community exhibition, National Museum of Australia, Canberra[27]
- 2005, 12 July – 10 September: PROOF: Portraits from The Movement 1978–2003 National Portrait Gallery and Macquarie University Gallery 10 March – 10 May 2004.[28][29]
- 2016, November–December: Gemes' work was included in an exhibition at Carriageworks in Redfern, Sydney, celebrating the 40th anniversary of NAISDA Dance College, called Naya Wa Yugali ("We Dance" in Darkinyung language).[30][31]
- 2019: Juno Gemes: The Quiet Activist, A Survey Exhibition 1979–2019[10][16]
- 2019, 17 – 29 September: group show entitled Three Women Artists In Country, Maunsel Wickes at Barry Stern Galleries[32]
References
External links
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