Through the looking glass

The fantasies of photography

Featured in

  • Published 20241105
  • ISBN: 978-1-923213-01-2
  • Extent: 196 pp
  • Paperback, ebook, PDF

Photography and truth have always had a complicated relationship. Long before AI and deepfakes recalibrated our trust in the medium, we’ve seen reality reinterpreted or misrepresented through the lens of a camera. For Australian artist Amy Carkeek, this porous boundary between photographic fact and fiction is a source of wide-­ranging inspiration and a way of interrogating some of our abiding cultural norms and motifs, from the vanishing suburban dream to society’s treatment of women. In this conversation, Carkeek talks to Griffith Review Editor Carody Culver about the oppositions and opportunities of the photographic image.

CARODY CULVER: Many of the works in this visual essay are from three photographic series: Descry (2021), Objects of Despair (2022–) and Gestures of Retribution (2023–). Aesthetically, these series are all strikingly different, which of course reflects the versatility of photography as an art form. What draws you to work in this particular visual medium?

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

About the author

Amy Carkeek

Amy Carkeek is an Australian artist and researcher. She has exhibited in galleries across Australia and the US, and has been a finalist in...

More from this edition

Religion as resistance

Non-fictionIn their youth, my parents participated in the anti-­apartheid movement, attending meetings and outlawed protests. From birth their lives had been prescribed by the apartheid regime, from the suburbs they could live in to the beaches they could swim at to the benches they could sit on; there was little it saw fit to leave unregulated. Both of their families had been forcibly relocated from District Six when it had been reclassified as a whites-­only area. They attended Coloured schools, where they were taught by both white and Coloured teachers. At one of these schools, my teenaged mother challenged a teacher for making a racist comment and subsequently chose to leave the school when they backed the teacher instead. My father’s father was a Shaykh, his uncle an eminent Islamic scholar known across both the Cape and wider South Africa. In their youth, my parents participated in the anti-­apartheid movement, attending meetings and outlawed protests. From birth their lives had been prescribed by the apartheid regime, from the suburbs they could live in to the beaches they could swim at to the benches they could sit on; there was little it saw fit to leave unregulated. Both of their families had been forcibly relocated from District Six when it had been reclassified as a whites-­only area. They attended Coloured schools, where they were taught by both white and Coloured teachers.

On the contrary

In Conversation Australian novelist Lexi Freiman knows how to walk a literary tightrope. Her fiction is both savagely funny and strikingly empathetic, daring to satirise the...

The window

FictionOne dinner, in the midst of playing with Seb in the reflection, Rudi laughing and squealing away, there came the distinct burst of a sob. We stopped in our tracks, looking around at each other in confusion until we located the downturned whimpering in Tim’s eyes and mouth. What is it? I asked, putting my hand on his shoulder. He turned and buried his face into my neck. What is it? I repeated. I don’t like them, he moaned, his hand pointing towards the window.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.