Dark Chamber was constructed inside the Centre of Contemporary Photography Melbourne in 2023, with its dioptre facing west framing the Marquis of Lorne Pub Fitzroy.

The exposure was made with 50 sheets of Photographic Paper each measuring 61 x 50.8cm, meticulously hung in the darkness producing a paper negative image of Dark Chambers perspective.

For Renato Colangelo the Camera Obscura lives in a dream like state, a womb, gracious and poetic; harnessing the beauty of a moving image combined with the reaffirmation of memory.

‘Sunju Calabrese’ 2022 Silver Gelatin Print on Ilford Art 300 90×90 CM

‘Sunju Calabrese’ ( Sunju is Calabrian dialect for ‘I am’ )

Piero Clemente Garreffa is a painter born in Australia, His artwork strongly identifies with his Italian cultural heritage, his upbringing on a rural farm in Mildura & his sense of place within these narratives.

He is unique, flamboyant with an expressive character.

We share a unique bond with both of our fathers born in the same small town in Calabria Italy called ‘Benestare’ (‘Its good to stay’)

Walking Through the Darkness | Centre for Contemporary Photography 2023

Artist Renato Colangelo has constructed a working Camera Obscura (Latin: Camera = Chamber ; Obscura = Dark) within the CCP.

You are invited to walk-in to a darkened chamber casting an image of the outside world – reversed and upside down. The ‘Dark Chamber‘ is the very starting point of photography, the moment where darkness meets light, where the interior and exterior worlds meet and co-exist. A simple yet magical process of harnessing light, and experiencing the moment, ‘Dark Chamber‘ gives audiences the opportunity to stand ‘inside’ a camera, and watch how light and dark interact to allow us to record and observe the world. The ‘Dark Chamber‘ is womb-like and poetic, and CCP welcomes you to experience this dream-like, beautiful and moving installation.

Torn $1 note from my subterranean artifacts.

The original artwork by David Malangi – Mortuary feasts of Gurrmirringu, the great ancestral hunter 1963, was copied by the Reserve Bank in 1966 without the artists consent prompting the first Aboriginal copyright dispute.

A year later he was awarded A$1,000 dollars a medallion & a fishing kit.

Terroni is a series of images, video work & audio recordings resulting from my research into my families sentimental past identity, discovering how they continue to hold onto their cultural traditions in Australia, and how their beliefs are entrenched in the past and re-identified in present Italy.

Renato Colangelo and Darren Davison's ‘Standpoint’ (2006) is a large, walk-in camera obscura constructed on Federation Square, on the west side of ACMI, overlooking Flinders Street Station.

Colangelo’s use of photography touches on the very nature of language as something that functions on the level of idea but has a concrete and physical connection to existence.

The series ‘Confrontations’ responded to Colangelo’s interest in family portraiture. Created as an informal family album, the series captured familial moments lost love and despair.