SARAH BARKER - EXPOSURE INTERNATIONAL OPEN CALL

This series The Ascent of Us was an unexpected gift from Covid lockdown during the southern hemisphere winter of 2020. I spent most of my time in my third floor apartment about 100 metres from a major teaching hospital.

The shadows of the people who passed beneath my balcony each day don't reveal their skin colour or race, their politics, their faith or their sexual identity. But the shadows do tell us something about our shared humanity.

The title of the series refers to "The Ascent of Man" by British mathematician Jacob Bronowski and the "Us" comes from the "They are us" speech made by the Prime Minister of Aotearoa/New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, after the Christchurch massacre.

BIOGRAPHY

Sarah Barker makes portrait, social-documentary and street photographs and her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. During her life Sarah has also worked as a volunteer photographer for a number of not-for-profit organisations.

Sarah’s photographs have been recognised as finalists in awards, selected for group exhibitions and acquired by the State Library of New South Wales. In 2021 Sarah was winner of the Street Photography category of The Lucie Foundation Guardian Project and in 2013 she was joint winner of Tap Gallery’s “Out of my Pocket” mobile phone competition and winner of its People’s Choice Award.

Sarah Barker lives and works on the unceded land of the Gadigal people in Sydney, Australia, where she began her career in a commercial photography studio last century.