The Heavy Collective “illuminate the practice of image making”

Australia-based photography platform, The Heavy Collective, displays work “dedicated to the showcase and discussion of contemporary photography”. With a taste for photographers who “illuminate the practice of image making and its ability to represent and reflect our lived experiences,” the work the collective celebrates blurs the lines between documentary photography and the artistic.

Publishing work online and in exhibitions, The Heavy Collective has recently released its second volume of photography works featuring the likes of Dana Lixenburg, Mark Peckmzeian and Deanna Templeton, among many more. “We look at publishing from a place of necessity, integral to photographic literacy,” explains member of the collective, Jack Harries. “Volume II is a pairing of images and text, a conversation between photographer and viewer, writer and reader.”

Looking through the newest edition there is a variety of photographers shooting in colour, black and white, photographing topographies or portraits. As a result, we asked The Heavy Collective to pick a couple of features they felt best represents its ethos and outlook. “It is difficult narrowing it down to two, in terms of importance or how effectively they represent the book, it’s all the parts that make the whole I guess, and in that respect they are all of equal to me,” says Jack. Yet, photographers Susan Lipper and Irina Rozovsky’s work in particular “is always exciting and clear in my head,” he explains.

“What I find most interesting about both photographers’ work is neither points a camera and asks you see truth, their practice sits somewhere in the intersection of fiction and fact, combining narrative and traditional documentary to raise questions on the nature of truth and representation in image making.” Both different in content and context, the two photographers, “both challenge our modes of reading images, forcing the viewer to question what is they are seeing and to look deeper into the work,” an ideal example of the publication’s attentive and thoughtful representation of photography as a medium.