By Jesse Graham
They’re often stereotyped, marginalised or ignored, but young men on the journey to adulthood are the focus of a Warburton photographer’s latest project.
Seen and Heard – Boy to Man is a project being run by Warburton’s Kate Baker, documenting the faces of Yarra Junction and Mount Evelyn’s young men at CIRE Services.
Ms Baker said the project was inspired by a 2006-2008 portrait series of hers, featuring photos of homeless and disadvantaged young people at a refuge in Sydney, which was published in the book Fridays at Oasis.
“What was really significant for me about that project was I didn’t anticipate, I didn’t realise at the time the power of portraiture, in the sense of that impact it could have on someone’s life,” she said.
Despite only having brief, half-hour interactions with the subjects as they were photographed with her large-format film camera, some of the subjects have been making contact with her even 10 years on.
Though Ms Baker has worked in creative arts and photography since the Oasis series, she said she wanted another project “that might have more of a social impact”.
“It’s a big issue that remains globally, around young men in that transition phase between boyhood and manhood; issues of teenage depression, suicide, homelessness, a sense of alienation, radicalisation of youth and also the notion of what it is to be a man,” she said.
“Masculinity has really changed – it’s only one or two generations since women have had a completely different role … men used to get their validation through being a breadwinner, and now it’s really different. It’s not male versus female anymore, it’s a completely different model.”
The project, she said, is about documenting men aged 15-19 in that transitionary phase, breaking down the negative perceptions of young men in society and exploring how they fit into their communities.
Ms Baker said her Oasis portraits were an “equal exchange” between her and each subject, in that she had an interesting person to photograph, and each person received a silver gelatin print of their portrait.
That exchange continues in Seen and Heard, with the participating young men receiving a print of their photo.
Ms Baker said that taking portraits on an old-fashioned large format camera was a different environment than people are used to when being photographed – in that she does not have to stand behind the camera, looking through.
“The fact is, I don’t shoot you – I don’t have a camera up to my eye which separates me from you – the camera’s here by my side and I am looking at you, and I might ask someone to look in the lens, but I’m not separated from them,” she said.
“It’s different, and it does change things and I think that’s part of it, too.”
The end product will also be murals featuring the portraits, pasted on walls in Yarra Junction and Mount Evelyn, which will go up around May.
“I decided to do the murals instead of an exhibition, because then I felt it was more accessible,” Ms Baker said.
“It was basically bringing the art into the community, rather than requiring the community to go to a designated area they might not know about.”
“I’m actually embedding the youth, literally, in the community.”
The project has been supported with grants from Yarra Ranges Council and the RACV’s Community Foundation.
For more information, visit Facebook.com/seenandheardboytoman
