NAOMI HOBSON IN ‘YOUNG | YOUTH IN AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHY: 198O’S TO NOW’ AT MAPH

Through the lens of some of Australia’s most vital image makers, Young | youth in Australian Photography: 1980s to now asks us to consider the role photography plays in shaping the story of growing up in this country. The exhibition captures the fleeting and the formative, reflects cultural ideals and anxieties, and constructs the very image of youth itself. From the stage to the spontaneous, from the diaristic to the documentary, these works reveal that youth is not only lived but also performed, remembered and mythologised.

The exhibition draws from the MAPh collection – a living, breathing archive at the heart of the museum. What emerges is a vibrant, restless and deeply human portrait of what it means to be young, from the intensity of adolescence to the excitement of new possibilities and shifting social worlds. MAPh’s collection shines here not only as a repository of history but also as a dynamic force charged with attitude, vulnerability, risk and style.

Young | youth in Australian photography: 1980s to now
22.11.2O25 — 22.O2.2O26
Museum of Australian Photography
86O Ferntree Gully Rd
Wheelers Hill VIC 315O

Image: Naomi Hobson, The good sister ‘Ms. Daley, the kindergarten teacher has a flash black bike, it’s them olden-style one. Every time I drop Erica off at kindy, I always check it out.’ Kayla, 2O19, from the series Adolescent Wonderland, pigment ink-jet print, 69.2 x 1O4.1 cm.