Young People

Art Lab: Tell Your Story

NGA x PhotoAccess

Colour Cibachrome photograph of a man and a woman, with the woman's arms around his neck smiling.

Nan Goldin, Nan on Brian's lap, Nan's birthday, New York City, 1981 from the series The ballad of sexual dependency, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 2021 in celebration of the National Gallery of Australia's 40th anniversary, 2022 © Nan Goldin


Sat 23 Sep 2023, 1pm
Sun 24 Sep 2023, 2pm
Tim Fairfax Learning Studio & PhotoAccess Studio
Wheelchair Accessible
No performances scheduled

Duration: 8hrs over 2 days
Ages: 16 to 25
Free, registration essential

Art Labs are artist-led workshops connecting young audiences nationally with artists, artmaking and the national collection.

Recently acquired by the National Gallery, The ballad of sexual dependency, is Goldin’s extended photographic study of her chosen family – her ‘tribe.’ The work began life as a slide show screened in the clubs and bars of New York where Goldin and her friends worked and played. The slide show was then distilled to a series of 126 photographs which are on display in Gallery 26 (Level 2) from the 8 July to 28 January 2024.

Presented in partnership with PhotoAccess, this workshop will teach you how to use photography as a tool for documentation, observation, and expression through personal storytelling.

Join Anne O’Hehir -Curator, Photography, for a floor talk about the exhibition. Draw inspiration from Goldin's approach to photography as a tool for recording and storytelling to develop your own artwork that features your own story, your community and the life of your generation. Explore themes such as close relationships, growing up, love, diaries, and what it means to be a young person in today's world.

Please note:

Art Lab will be delivered at two different locations over two different days.

Sat 23 Sep: 1–5pm, National Gallery, Parkes Place, ACT, 2600.
Sun 24 Sep: 2–6pm, PhotoAccess Studio, 30 Manuka Cir, Griffith ACT 2603.

All materials provided. Bring your own water bottle.

VIEWER ADVICE

The photographs in Nan Goldin’s The ballad of sexual dependency depict the everyday lives, often in intimate detail, of people in Goldin’s immediate community during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Please be advised that works of art in this exhibition depict explicit nudity, sexual acts, drug use, and the impacts of violence against women.

Viewer discretion is advised.

This exhibition is not suitable for children under the age of 15.

Please contact the Programs Convenor, Young People for further information if required young.people@nga.gov.au