Reportage Abroad: Andrew Quilty – Special Event
Reportage Abroad: Andrew Quilty – Special Event
Even at sunrise in the dead of winter, a balloon-seller plies his trade in one of Kabul’s 50 informal settlements for displaced families. Kabul, December 2013. Courtesy and © Andrew Quilty.
A patient of Médecines Sans Frontières’ Kunduz Trauma Centre, later identified as 43-year-old husband and father of four, Baynazar Mohammad Nazar, lays dead a week after an American AC-130 gunship destroyed the hospital, mistaking it for a Taliban command centre at the time the militants had taken control of the city from the Afghan government, while he was undergoing an operation. Kunduz Province, October, 2015. Courtesy and © Andrew Quilty.
Afghan National and Local Police inside a compound on the frontline in Chahr-i Anjir. A Taliban position is visible less than 100 metres away. Two weeks later, the compound was ambushed and two policemen killed. Helmand Province, April, 2016. Courtesy and © Andrew Quilty.
For Exposure 04: Reportage Abroad, Nikon-Walkley award-winning photojournalist Andrew Quilty is joined by journalist Helen Vastikopoulos to share his insights and experiences living and working in Kabul, Afghanistan.
In December 2013, Quilty visited Afghanistan for the first time on a trip that was intended to last ten days. After ten weeks Quilty returned to Australia but was eager to get back to its capital, Kabul, the city he would call home for the next three years.
Since then Quilty has been documenting the war-ravaged country, capturing the rise in extremists groups, the heart-breaking results of conflict and the everyday struggles faced by the Afghan people.
In 2016 Quilty received the Gold Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism after his coverage of the October 2015 attack by allied forces on the Medicines Sans Frontieres Kunduz Trauma Centre.
This is a rare opportunity to hear first hand from one of Australia’s leading practitioners on the current state of affairs in Afghanistan and the Islamic world and the critical role of photojournalism.
This is the forth forum from the Exposure series. These talks are intend to shed light on the full spectrum of photographic practice, presentation and literature by inviting photographers, curators and writers to share their photographic interests with ACP audiences.
Event details
University of Technology, Sydney, 19 January 2017
Presented in partnership with University of Technology, Sydney, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, School of Communications, Media Arts and Production.
About Andrew Quilty
After completing his Photography Certificate at Ultimo TAFE in 2004, Quilty undertook work experience with, and was soon employed by, The AFR. But it was the work he did outside his day job that began to attract the attention of the photographic community. His first big editorial break came when his vigorous black and white observations from The Cronulla Riots in December 2005 were published in TIME Magazine.
In 2006 he was promoted to the position of staff photographer for The AFR Magazine. In 2007 he was invited to join Australia’s preeminent photographic collective Oculi and a string of accolades soon followed, including, in 2008, a World Press Photo Award and the inaugural Walkley Young Australian Photojournalist of The Year Award.
After turning to a freelance career in Sydney and then New York between 2010 and 2013 Quilty has based himself in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul and has also covered the story surrounding the emergence of the Islamic State in the Middle East extensively.
Since then Quilty’s work has been awarded 6 Walkley Awards, including the 2016 Gold Walkley – the highest honour in Australian journalism, a Picture of the Year International award and the George Polk award for photojournalism. A retrospective of his work from Afghanistan was exhibited at the Visa Pour L’image Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan, France.
About Helen Vastikopoulos
Helen Vatsikopoulos is a Walkley Award winning journalist who has worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and its international station, the Australia Network, and for the Special Broadcasting Service.
In a career spanning 30 years she has worked on programs such as the ABC News, the Midday Report, the 7.30 report, Dateline, Lateline and Foreign Correspondent. In that time she has specialised in International Reporting and has covered history-changing events like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Communism, the Rwandan Genocide, the HIV-Aids crisis in West Papua, the Sri Lankan Civil War, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and the Bali Bombings — among many others. Her reporting on the collapse of the USSR won her a coveted Walkley award.
Helen has presented many studio-based television programs including Face the Press, News Extra, Talking Heads and Dateline for SBS; The 7.00 pm News and the Midday Report for ABC1 and Asia-Pacific Focus for the Australia Network. She has also made three documentaries: New World Borders, Getting Gehry and the award-winning Agatha’s Curse.
Images © Andrew Quilty.
