The main exhibition of the 9th Triennial of Photography Hamburg, curated by Mark Sealy, celebrates the cultural and artistic diversity of photography and its healing and transformative power. It creates an open, polyphonic space of encounter that questions societal polarizations and seeks to overcome the division between “us” and the “other”. At the same time, the exhibition renders tangible the ethical principles underpinning the festival “Alliance, Infinity, Love – In the Face of the Other” as a lived experience.

The exhibition presents around 30 artistic positions spanning photography, video, and film, recounting stories rooted in a wide range of places and cultural experiences—from Australia and Japan to Lebanon and Palestine, from Brazil and Jamaica to South Africa, Brussels or London, and Greenland.

Brenda L Croft (b.1964, Perth, Australia – Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra Peoples; AngloAustralian/Chinese/German/Irish/Scottish heritage) has, since the mid 1980’s been a key participant in Australian and international First Nations and broader contemporary arts/cultural sectors as a multi-disciplinary creative practitioner – artist, author, curator, educator, researcher and scholar. Brenda is based at the Australian National University (ANU) as Professor of Indigenous Art History & Curatorship, living and working on unceded Ngambri/Ngunnawal Ancestral Country.

The series titled Naabámi (thou shall / will see): Barangaroo (army of me), commenced in 2019 and ongoing, features large-scale photographic portraits of contemporary Australian First Nations women and girls, many of whom have worked with the artist on previous projects spanning decades, with cultural connections across Australia. The creation of the series was supported by photographic technical assistant Prue Hazelgrove and Darkstar Digital.

Naabámi (thou will/shall see): Barangaroo (army of me) honours Barangaroo (c.1750– 1791), a staunch Cammeraygal woman renowned for her unwavering resolve as to how she would live and die on her sovereign homelands.

Barangaroo’s role as a First Nations cultural navigator during the earliest colonial contact in the late 18th century, underscores her relevance and continuing inspiration for First Nations women more than two centuries later.

Barangaroo was literally and metaphorically standing her unceded sovereign ground during earliest British colonisation, a time of immense cultural upheaval and irrevocable change for Gadigal, Cammeraygal, Wangal and surrounding clans.

Today, the Australian First Nations women and girls portrayed within Naabámi (thou shall/will see): Barangaroo (army of me) act as Barangaroo’s avatars, her sovereign soldiers – always were, always will be. Still we rise.