Australia has a complex history that is underpinned by over 60,000 years of continuous and unceded First Peoples connection – comprising over 250 different language groups or ‘countries’. There has since been over two centuries of colonisation, whereby settler and diaspora communities have made the continent their home. The nation is a shared space of multifaceted histories and stories, and although colonialism has attempted to suppress First Nations People, their culture has continued and is strong and living today.

‘Country’ is a term embodied by First Peoples in Australia to describe the lands, waterways, seas and cosmos to which they are connected. It represents Ancestral ties to a place, and the living cultural presence of that place, and references the complex relationship land has to language, family and identity. Being ‘on Country’ is more than just being situated somewhere, it is about being shaped by that place, connected to it, and having a responsibility to care for it.

On Country: Photography from Australia features seventeen Australian contemporary photographic artists and collectives.
Placing First Peoples’ practice and relationality at the core, this publication brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists who bear witness to both the visible and invisible aspects of being on Country. Through their work, the project explores old and new relationships between Country and colonialism, community, and identity in Australia today.

In contrast to its historic use as an early tool for ethnographic documentation in Australia, the artists embrace photography as a medium for truth telling, self-determination and collaboration, both acknowledging the past and suggesting possible futures, shifting the power dynamics inherent in photography, and therefore redefining photographic practice on this southern land.

Published on the occasion of the 2025 exhibition On Country: Photography from Australia, presented at the Rencontres d’Arles