Indigenous photographer receives $5,000 inclusion grant
Marley Morgan, a photographer from the Wiradjuri, Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay nations, is the Australian winner of the inaugural iStock inclusion grant. Offered in partnership with Australia Council for the Arts, Morgan receives a grant of $5,000. Her work highlights the beauty of First Nations families with a focus on Aboriginal women, motherhood, and culture.
She plans to use the grant to address the lack of representation of Aboriginal people in the commercial space by creating an iStock library that provides authentic imagery of Aboriginal people. A mother of three, Morgan was inspired to photograph Indigenous women, specifically mums, in a positive light after giving birth to her first child and not identifying with the women in the materials she was seeing in doctors’ offices.
“Use of Aboriginal faces in commercial imagery is often for oppressive purposes to highlight negative issues affecting the Aboriginal population such as overrepresentation of incarceration rates, welfare management schemes, children in the care system, and social housing,” she says. “Constant negative imagery takes a toll on perception of self and how others perceive Aboriginal people. My work aims to address the lack of representation of Aboriginal people in the commercial imagery space…”
In addition to the grant money, Morgan is able to license her winning work on iStock and receive 100% of the royalties.
Patricia Adjei, Head of First Nations Arts & Culture Sector Development for Australia Council, said she hopes the grant will help fill a shortage of First Nations photographers. “First Nations people are the custodians of First Nations culture, and yet, we often see non-First Nations photographers recording First Nations’ people and stories," she said.
Other winners of the grant include US-based film-maker Malaika Muindi, UK photographer Mathushaa Sagthidas, and Colombian photographer Natalia Ortiz Mantilla.
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