Creating with Architecture Online Exhibition

The Creating with Architecture online exhibition brings together photographs and poems developed by participants of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale workshop of the same name, presented as part of the 2026 Ballarat Heritage Festival.

Led by photographer Georgina Matherson and poet and historian Nadia Rhook, participants engaged with the exterior of the National Centre for Photography, housed in the former Union Bank building, making photographs and writing poetry in response to its layered histories. Through a series of guided exercises, they considered how attention to both the visible and invisible aspects of a building can shape creative responses to place.

Participating artists: Jacqueline Cleverley, Amanda Gallagher, Selwyn Hoffmann, Rod Howes, Kaye Linsdell, Jacqueline Matisse, Pru McAlpin, Jason Nahrung, Josh Pomery (with children Edie and Reuben), Amy Tsilemanis and Adrian Tusek.

This exhibition is designed to be experienced on a larger screen such as a desktop computer or laptop.

Memory Markers

Amy Tsilemanis

The Facade

Jason Nahrung

Your columns:
— fluted like champagne glasses poised to celebrate
the wealth that was in our pans,
maybe picks and shovels, maybe stamper clans – ultimately, fortune favours the rich

— towering over streets made of mullock heaps,
the closest things to trees when timber’s needed to
burn and brace and build a barren field of dreams – the children of the rich inherit the earth

— reminders of colonial vision,
clap sticks and gum smoke driven underground
where tunnels of broken promises lie – that white stone foundation laid on black lava flow

— promising a future set in stone,
we are all one in the melting pot of need and greed
caught up in the latest rush – the paupers are never buried at the top of the hill

Your columns: their cracks are showing