The World Photography Organisation has announced that a solo exhibition by Australian photographer Adam Ferguson, who won the Photographer of the Year 2022 award, will be showcased as part of the Sony World Photography Awards 2023 exhibition at Somerset House in London from 14 April to 1 May 2023
Adam Ferguson is the first recipient of a new prize for the Awards where the Photographer of the Year is rewarded with a solo presentation of their work as part of the Sony World Photography Awards London exhibition the following year. The exhibition, titled Silent Wind, Roaring Sky, documents the rural communities living in Australia’s Outback over eight years. and explores the post colonial legacy of the Outback as well as the impacts of globalisation and climate change.
Ferguson has described Silent Wind, Roaring Sky as an ‘attempt to challenge and position archetypal tropes of Australian identity with the complex realities of contemporary life in the Outback.’
© Adam Ferguson, Father and Son Shearers, 2017, from ‘Silent Wind, Roaring Sky’, courtesy of the artist
The World Photography Organisation is delighted to present Silent Wind, Roaring Sky, a solo exhibition by the acclaimed Australian photographer Adam Ferguson, winner of the prestigious Photographer of the Year 2022. The work documents the remote lives of communities in Australia’s outback and is showcased as part of the Sony World Photography Awards 2023 exhibition at Somerset House, London this April.
Silent Wind, Roaring Sky charts repeated journeys, over the course of eight years, deep into rural Australia, a place of great significance for Ferguson who grew up with his family’s stories and images of life in the Outback. With time he became aware of its hold on the public consciousness as a mythologised and unknowable wilderness and felt compelled to examine it in his work.
Ferguson found a landscape and a community in a state of dramatic transition: Australia is the driest inhabited continent on Earth, and the outback is increasingly impacted by the effects of climate change and globalisation. Through this deeply personal journey, Ferguson explores the post colonial legacy of the Outback, reflects on land stolen from Aboriginal Australians, and tells the stories of communities living through a moment of crisis, where the signature red dust has become a growing threat, and where the endemic poverty of Aboriginal Australians is pronounced.
Commenting on the series Adam Ferguson says: ‘Silent Wind, Roaring Sky is a photographic survey of Australia’s heartland. Drawing on childhood memories and travelling documentation, I observe fading yet iconic events, Aboriginal connection to the country, shrinking small-towns, pastoralism, the impacts of globalisation, and the adversity of climate change. I attempt to challenge and position archetypal tropes of Australian identity with the complex realities of contemporary life in the Outback.’
Ferguson was awarded the prestigious Photographer of the Year title in 2022 and is the first recipient of a new prize element for the Award: from 2023 onwards the Photographer of the Year is rewarded with a solo presentation of their work as part of the Sony World Photography Awards London exhibition the following year. This is in addition to the $25,000 cash prize, a range of Sony digital imaging equipment. The opportunity allows photographers to further develop their winning project or exhibit another body of work, gaining them additional exposure and advancing their careers.
Silent Wind, Roaring Sky will be published in a dedicated photobook, including new and previously unseen images from the series, by GOST Books, in February 2024.
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