SISSY AND ZAPPA
$900
I met Sissy and Zappa who work in a store called the Hippie Shop; during a brief visit to the coast. She is 17 and he is 16. They have been high school sweethearts and their closeness was apparent. They exuded warmth and openness to wanting to know more about me, a stranger who expressed an interest in photographing them. Sissy possesses a kind of wisdom atypical of a young person her age, while Zappa is a calm and gentle soul. I love the tenderness about them, the way they look at each other and hold each other as in this photo.
Archival print on bamboo Hahnemuhle
50.8 x 76.2cm
Artist Statement: Cristina Saulo is a an Anthropologist and a documentary photographer. She initially migrated to the Hinterland, in the Sunshine Coast, QLD in 2009, where the personal circumstances of migration have profoundly impacted her life. In 2013 Although not formally trained in filmmaking and painting, she was able to creatively express deep emotions of nostalgia for lost home, the pain of losing her identity and the lack of belonging in an unfamiliar place, through the film “Telling Lives” and her early paintings.
As a photographer she has exhibited her work in Southeast Asia, Europe and Australia. Her most comprehensive documentary photography works were on the three indigenous Southeast Asian Indigenous groups namely: the Batak of Puerto Princesa, Palawan; the Mlabri and the Hmong, in the Thai-Lao border. She also documented the last cultural bearers of Ilocos Sur, Philippines. Her first Australian solo exhibition was at the Caloundra Regional Art Gallery, in Sunshine Coast QLD in 2013. In 2015 she decided to purse a PhD in Anthropology at the Australian National University (ANU). Her research focused on the diasporic experiences of Hmong migrant-refugee women in Sydney and Canberra who escaped the Phatet Lao regime in the late 70s. Currently, Cristina works as a Regional Anthropologist at the Northern Land Council.
Contact Tactile Arts on 08 8981 6616 or admin@tactilearts.org.au to purchase.
