Sydney’s Australian Centre for Photography to close.

This week The Sydney Morning Herald reported the Australian Centre for Photography’s board has made the painful decision to close due to ‘cash crunch brought on by Covid-19 lockdown, the shift to smartphone photography and funding cuts.’

The Darlinghurst gallery will close on 16 December. Four full time, two part-time and fifteen casual tutors will loose their jobs.

The Australian Centre for Photography was one of the only places in NSW to teach large format photography workshops and film processing.

The centre will go into ‘hibernation’ while it restructures the organisation to protect it from ‘ongoing financial losses’.

In the same week the Daniel Andrew’s Victorian Labour Government announced a $6.7 million investment to establish the National Centre for Photography in Ballarat.

‘The National Centre for Photography will proudly sit on Lydiard Street, between Craigs Hotel, the Art Gallery of Ballarat and the Post Office Gallery, and will add to the public gallery programming of Ballarat. It is aligned with the vision of Ballarat City Councils Arts Precinct.

A classic architectural site of Ballarat, the former Union Bank building will house two dedicated gallery spaces downstairs; a contemporary gallery for temporary exhibitions and a community gallery. Upstairs there will be a professional dark room, a dedicated photobook library as well as a stockroom housing the Ballarat International Foto Biennale’s permanent collection of images. The building will be multi-functional allowing for educational workshop spaces and an artist in residence program with a professional studio and accommodation facilities.

The National Centre for Photography will accommodate the offices of the BIFB in-turn ensuring the community can participate in positive arts experiences in Ballarat all year round. A curated Public and Education Program within the centre will have the potential for thousands of creative outcomes as well as adding to the tourism dollar by attracting national and international audiences and participants.’ from BIFB website.