An Ongoing Creative Development Opportunity and New Visual Archive of 21st Century Life in Our Region

The team at Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts and Culture Centre are pleased to announce a new creative project for local young people. Thanks to a grant from the Katherine Youth Activities Fund, we are developing the Katherine Youth Photography Corps—an ongoing free initiative to foster young artists and image-makers, and capture scenes of life, people, and place in our region. The program is free and open to all local students and young people, and expressions of interest are now being accepted. 

Katherine-based professional photographer Elise Kristy is coordinating the program, and the upcoming workshops for young photographers. Sessions will be held at Godinymayin and at locations around town. Digital photography equipment, printing and supplies, and exhibition support will be provided by the project. 

“This creative opportunity is free for any local young person wanting to explore photography, learn new artistic skills, and also help us document the time and place we live in,” says coordinator Elise Kristy. “We invite students and parents to come along to our upcoming sessions at Godinymayin and learn more about the Katherine Youth Photographer Corps.” 

The Katherine Young Photography Corps will help young people explore digital photography and printing, undertaking location shoots around both town and the region. Their ongoing photographic work will be selected and printed—serving as content for public exhibitions and as an ongoing collection of images relating to life in Katherine.

“Here at Godinymayin, our team started talking about how things are changing and growing—and we realised the need to document what is going on around us,” says Chief Executive Eric Holowacz. “Everybody who participates in this new Youth Photography Corps will be doing that, guided by professional photographers, to archive away and, many decades from now, share with the future.”

With each free workshop, young participants will capture people, places, friends, family, shops, landscapes, and life in our community. At the completion of each session, the participants and coordinator will print the best images in archival form, and a copy to take home for their own display. And later this year, the Godinymayin gallery will present an exhibition of the photography made by participating young people. 

“We will also work with museums and archives to provide them with photographic prints to serve as a new and ongoing collection of social history made by our younger generation,” explains Holowacz. 

“Many of the things about the past we know from photographs—food, clothing, sport and recreation, urban developments, ancestors, and landscapes. Why not capture life in our times, so that our great, great grandchildren can look back and know a bit more?”

As the initiative grows, Godinymayin will offer future youth arts training to expand participant skills, explore digital technology, generate more exhibitions by young people, and grow the archival photography collection. As the initiative evolves, the youth workshop programming also hopes to extend into advance photography such as drone cameras, moving images, 360 photography, and Augmented Reality tools. 

“We want this to become an ongoing opportunity for Katherine young people to expand their creative powers and find a platform for greater connection to the world,” says Kristy.  “And at the end of the day, it’s also a celebration of our community and the lives we live, the places we know, and all the interesting things around us.”

Parents, students, and youth organisations wanting to get involved with the Katherine Young Photographer Corps can click here to learn more and sign on!