Deadly Sports Heroes Outdoor Exhibition
This incredible outdoor exhibition, is a celebration of Barbara McGrady's career, connection to community and deadly eye for fantastic shots of sports heroes.
Gamilaroi/Gomeroi Murri Yinah photographer Barbara McGrady is unique as an indigenous accredited NRL/AFL on field sports photographer. This exhibition celebrates sports heroes she has photographed over the years.
Her images capture the passion and achievements of contemporary Australian sports history.
Australia has always made its name and fame as a sporting nation. First Nations sports men and women have played a central part in this achievement. They have embraced and excelled across all fields of sport, as this exhibition will show.
Barbara McGrady is ‘more than’ a sports photographer. She sees the world ‘through a black lens’ having committed her life to recording the contemporary history of First Nations people, telling the story entirely from an indigenous point of view.
From an early age living in Mungindi, northern NSW, she inherited a passion for football from her father and was inspired by international photography publications and projects of the forties and fifties she recognised the power of photography to tell positive stories. It was the birth of photojournalism.
As well as achieving her goal of of becoming an accredited photojournalist in sport (the first Aboriginal woman to do that), she has documented Aboriginal community, in particular her local inner city community in Glebe, followed through the lens every important protest action for Aboriginal rights and made portraits of every First Nations person of note within the world of politics and arts. She has achieved this focus both through commissions for Aboriginal organisations and through the name she has made as a uniquely positionned documenter of Aboriginal stories.
Deadly Sports Heroes is directed specifically to First Nations youth in the inner city. Positive achievers and role models in sport over recent times will be displayed large scale on the walls of Peter Forsythe Sports Auditorium (the back of Broadway Shopping Centre) facing Glebe Point Road near Badde Manners Café.
Artist Bio
1988 Bachelor of Sociology/Indigenous Studies: Uni Sydney
Photojournalism Indigenous Environment and Community Issues
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 NIRIN Biennale of Sydney Art Gallery of NSW and Campbelltown Gallery installation collaboration with John Janson-Moore)
2020 Dyarra Murrama Guwing Gallery Lane Cove Curators: Rachael Kiang and Kyra Kum-Sing
2020 Gadigal Nura-Dya Gadigal Nura-Ba
2019 Always Will Be Griffith, Regional Art Gallery, NSW Australia.
2018 Deadly Women of Redfern, NCIE, Redfern, Sydney.
2018 Because Of Her We Can, Community Centre, Redfern, Syd
2018 Aboriginal Sports People, Video Installation, The Rocks, Syd
2017 Barbara McGrady: Always Will Be, Survey Exhibit. ACP Syd
2015 Always Was, Customs House, Sydney
2014 We Are Always Here, Discovery Museum, Sydney
2013 Visions In Black & White, Community Centre, Redfern, Syd
2012 Rights Here, Rites Now Boomali Aboriginal Gallery, Sydney
GROUP EXHIBITIONS SELECTED
2020 Paper Tigers, Celebration of the Best Australian Photojournalism, Head On Photo Festival 2020
2019 NAIDOC 2019, Griffith Regional Art Gallery, NSW Australia
2015 The Fire Burns On-Images From The Redfern Tent Embassy, Discovery Museum, Sydney
2015 Images From The Redfern Tent Embassy, 107 Gallery, Redfern, Sydney
2015 Sights from Sirens: 12 Aboriginal Women Photographers, JAALA Biennial, Kawasaki City Museum Japan, June 2014.
AWARDS
Parliament of NSW National Indigenous Human Rights Award. Recipient of The Anthony Mundine Courage Award, 2014.
International Solid Screen for Indigenous Women
Recipient of The Photo Media Documentation Award in 2015.
Artwork by Laura Pitt