Tanks Arts Centre My Home, My History

My Home, My History
Dr Suzanne Goopy, David Lloyd, Angela Blakely & Suzanne Howard
15 May - 12 Jun

This poignant and innovative touring documentary photographic exhibition features the determination of one of Australia's most successful migrant groups.

The Queensland Arts Council Ontour Exhibition "My Home, My History" captures the everyday lives of five post-war Italian migrant couples, documenting nostalgic images of their elaborate domestic interiors, and the objects and people who furnish them.

Coupled with the 75-minute documentary film "Mangiare Bene" (To Eat Well), the images tell the personal stories of a generation of Italo-Australians who left their home-land after the heartache of WWII to start a new life in Australia.

Displaying great determination, a sense of communal identity and creative spirit, this group has now become one of Australia's most successful migrant communities.

The exhibition brings together a unique combination of perspective from the visual arts and the social sciences to explore the experience of this generation who is now reaching old age.

Anthropologist, Dr Suzanna Goopy, and documentary film makers David Lloyd and Angela Blakely collaborated on this exhibition as part of a wider research project for Griffith University.

Dr Goopy says that as well as providing a beautiful rendering of often extraordinary ornate interiors, the photographs captured the hybrid identity of the group.

It reflects their simultaneous embrace of Australian values of prosperity and material success, and an "Italian" commitment to family and tradition.

Official Launch: 6pm Friday 15 May
Times: 10am - 4:30pm weekdays
Exhibit Open: 15 May ? 12 Jun
Cost: free
Venue: Tank 4
More info: www.qac.org.au