RED LIGHT DARK ROOM BIG HEART

I have been reading RED LIGHT DARK ROOM- Sex, Lives & Stereotypes by Brisbane photojournalist Gemma-Rose Turnbull, and highly recommend it!

Gemma spent a year as the artist in residence at the St Kilda Gatehouse in Melbourne, a non profit organisation who work with street workers. The women were given their own cameras to capture their lives and Gemma photographed and interviewed them, as well as writing down her own observations.

Turnbull’s writing is sublimely sensitive and gentle. She shows all her emotions, from deep frustration to anger, when writing about violence, rape and drugs, but most of all her compassion for the women who become her friends. She is a writer and photographer with a huge and kind heart, who does not judge the women or their addictions. She observes, supports, cries with them, and often feels immensely powerless.

The photos in the book are just like the writing-compassionate observations of the lives of a small group of women who are outsiders in our society.

Fremantle people may remember Gemma-Rose Turnbull’s Show Us Ya Tits exhibition at Artsource in the Old Customs House during FotoFreo 2010.

Order a book via Gemma’s Facebook page, or contact the St Kilda Gatehouse. It’s 208 page hardcover for only $ 50.00 plus postage. A must read for all open minded people!

Roel Loopers

BOOBS OFF YOUR FACE

It is great to see the Fremantle Herald prominently featuring the removal by Facebook of photos by Gemma-Rose Turnbull, who is exhibiting her show Show Us Ya Tits at Artsource in Fremantle.

Facebook is rather hypocritical when it removes pictures of a breast feeding mother and an 84 year old grandmother, while allowing three girls with fake boobs promoting a Sexpo to stay on. While breasts are deemed offensive by Facebook photos of penises remain on the site. That is inconsistent, hypocritical and sexist.

I have seen the show, and actually helped the artist hang it, and there is nothing offensive about the photos

Well done Fremantle Herald for exposing this!

Roel Loopers