Absolutely delighted to be a winner of Joerg Colberg's prestigious Conscientious Portfolio Competition.

Colberg, who picked my work (Indefinitely), writes: “Pictures are more than what they are as pictures. They also are what we bring to them. Possibly my choice is in part a reflection of how I have been feeling about the state of this world since this year’s events have taken humanity back to a very dark place. Indefinitely for sure is dark and somber. Yet it contains traces of hope, of it being a dream. We don’t know, yet, whether it’s about to become a nightmare or whether it will end well.”

Astres Noirs, photobook of the year:

The Guardian  - Sean O'Hagan

Photoeye - Eamonn Doyle and Daniel Boetker-Smith 

Colin Pantall 

Lens Culture - Erik Vroons, Peggy-Sue Amison, Francoise Callier, Regina Anzenberger 

The New Yorker Photo (takeover)

Astres Noirs selected for TIME's Best Photobooks of the Year  

"Astres Noirs is an ethereal, other-worldly experience; figures bathe in half light, galactic dust clouds disrupt familiar landscapes and alien jellyfish seem to be suspended in motion. The duotone printing shimmers with an unique silver quality, providing an astonishingly beautiful publication with a tactility not often experienced in the photobook".

Astres Noirs, Paris Photo Aperture First Photobook Award finalist

Installation view, Young International Photographers, Daegu Photo Biennale, South Korea

Dear Chris, CHOBI MELA IX, Bangladesh 2017

Indefinitely as part of 'Belonging', Obscura Festival, Penang Malaysia

Indefinitely, YET Magazine, with text by Matilde Scaramellini

'Indefinitely is that moment of intimate silence that binds us to life, that freezes time, action, judgment. It's the space between reality and imagination. It's the transition from sleep to the perception of the new day's sun. Katrin Koenning captures observation itself, in its purity; her shots translate a sense of pause that has to do with listening.'

Katrin Koenning and Sarker Protick - Towards the Light / Astres Noirs review by Sunil Shah, American Suburb X

'Completely captivated by the photographic possibilities of light, both artists come at the medium with a desire to seek the extraordinary in order to access invisible states of consciousness...The essence of both their work, therefore, appears to be rooted in the personal and meditative relationship they have with metaphysical thought and less with rigid notions of representing a photographic reality. Astres Noirs gives us an insight into their supernatural vision through these fairly eclectic astral projections...Having been a follower of both Koenning and Protick for some time on Instagram, often being mesmerised by their images and regularly dumbfounded at how they might have been created, I was beautifully reminded of the very natural affinity both artists have towards a higher state of consciousness.'

Lars Boering, managing director at World Press Photo, on The Crossing, Noorderlicht Festival, NL

'Astres Noirs' book launch, Friday July 1, 8pm, Le Bal, Paris.

 

 

Dear Chris, The Leftovers, Verge Gallery Sydney

The Crossing as part of CCP Declares: On the Social Contract, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne Australia, 27/05 - 10/07

Curated by Pippa Milne, CCP Declares: On the Social Contract draws together emerging and mid-career artists working at the forefront of Australian photography and video in its expanded field. The subtitle to this second iteration of CCP Declares acknowledges that these works examine or extend the idea of social contract theory; the idea that moral and political obligations and rights are bound upon an intrinsic agreement amongst the various constituents of a society.

Indefinitely solo show, The Lost Ones Gallery, Ballarat VIC

A Country big enough to Disappear In, The Adventure Handbook

'Koenning’s environment is one not solely of nature, but of human interference in the ritual of place making – and yet, the opportunity remains to insulate artefacts of history under gentle observation, in order to explore the entrenched narratives of each frame...'

The Crossing (Transfer), Australian Centre for Photography Sydney, 16 April - 15 May

Interview, Fotografia Magazine

Documentum (Fall Line Press), New York Times Lens Blog 

Daylight digital feature (Indefinitely) with text by Dan Rule

'We’re left in a state of flux – the tension between connection and disconnection ever present.'  

 'Light floods the frame. Bleached flares of afternoon sun gently inundate an otherwise lush woodland scene, its tangles of ferns, vines and low-lying foliage ensnaring the forest floor. It is a filter of haze, almost psychic in its effect. A proximate image describes a partial domestic scene, morning light creeping up a bedroom wall. It is adorned with a framed print of a classical still-life painting, a pair of pillows anchoring the composition at its base.'

Dan Rule

Solo Show, Indefinitely, Daylight Project Space (Hillsborough USA)

Indefinitely, curated projection (All the World's a Stage), Chennai Photo Biennale

This Howling Tasman Wind, Group Show, Terratory Journal
 

 Untitled from Lake Mountain, 2012

In our capitalist pursuit we thought we found progress, but in that, things got lost forever.  Now the urgency to halter manifests, knowing what is lost can’t resurrect. Our legacy is undeniably carved into everything we’ve touched; water, land, air. According to predictions measuring the effects of global warming, Australia counts among one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. Increasingly extreme weather conditions threaten to impact destructively on the environment, biodiversity, infrastructure and community. During the 2009 Black Saturday Bush fires considerable damage was caused at Lake Mountain, a popular winter destination 120 km out of Melbourne, Australia, changing the site forever. Lake Mountain is a long-term study of this scarred and transitioning Australian landscape. Much of my practice is an inquiry into our physical and emotional connection to place and our relationship to that which surrounds us. At their core, my methodology and vernacular rotate around the idea of returning to things; I’ve held this mountain’s breath for six years. It’s through immersion that I can be part of a land. The return enables me to know, the knowing makes me love, the loving authors me.