Hear Me Roar 1
HEAR ME ROAR (Self-portrait)
ZO DAMAGE 2026
Archival pigment print (triptych), 250 cm x 204 cm overall
HEAR ME ROAR is a recent work I am developing for submission to the 2026 Bowness Photography Prize.
Conceptually, each panel represents an individual woman, while the entire work embodies the collective voice of women. The large scale is intended to confront the viewer and compel engagement with the subject’s agency and worth as a site of presence and recognition.
Reflecting on this process, I recognise that the thematic intention to foreground presence and agency continues to shape my technical decisions and overall approach. Although this project does not utilise hand-based analogue photographic printmaking techniques, it aligns with my PhD research by exploring scale as a spatial strategy to confront viewers and encourage engagement with the agency and significance of the referent as a site of presence and recognition.
The image is an abstracted self-portrait with surrealist qualities, characterised by prominent film grain, a combination of high contrast and a broad tonal range in chiaroscuro, and soft focus. Achieving a high-quality scan that accurately renders the nuances of the negative is essential. For the intended scale, I am evaluating whether ‘flextight’ or ‘PMT’ scanning of the original 4×5 negative will best meet my requirements. My primary criteria are:
The scan must enable production of a 250 cm (2.5 m) print on the longest side without digital artefacts such as pixelation, and
It must also capture the negative’s rebate.
The work is designed to be wall-mounted at each corner (top, left, bottom, right) using small artisan nails provided by the artist. To ensure structural integrity, each corner is reinforced on the reverse with archival white linen tape, which prevents tearing during installation or de-installation and remains invisible from the front.
I am also consulting with Christopher Day from the MADA Photography Lab regarding production of the final print. Notably, a hand-crafted gelatin silver print is not feasible because my darkroom cannot accommodate exposures of this scale. Collaborating with the lab may introduce new technical possibilities and expand my understanding of large-scale digital photographic processes.
Figure 1. Me standing with a full-scale low-resolution bond paper wall-mount prototype of HEAR ME ROAR
Figure 2. Me standing with a full-scale low-resolution bond paper suspension-mounted prototype of HEAR ME ROAR
Given the scale and complexity of large-scale works and sculptural installations, my production process begins with sketching design concepts, followed by the creation of scaled models. Depending on the project, I also produce full-scale prototypes and install them in gallery-type settings prior to final realisation, as demonstrated in Figures 1 and 2. This preliminary design and prototyping phase is integral to my studio-based research, serving several functions. These include testing the scale and installation design in real-life settings to ensure the work challenges traditional ideals of perception and observation, thereby modelling a synthesised viewing experience.
In Figure 2, I explore how the artwork functions as a free-floating or suspended installation. On reflection, I decided to abandon this approach because the prints are single-sided, and I did not wish to present blank sheets of paper that lack authorial intentionality. Moreover, the wall-mounted display and use of pins, as shown in Figure 1, in contrast to the suspended format, highlight the tension of being constrained by societal conventions that, as previously discussed, marginalise women according to prevailing standards of youthfulness and perceived attractiveness.
Unlike my PhD project and other practice-based doctoral research, HEAR ME ROAR exemplifies hybridised photographic processes. Specifically, I captured the image using historic 4×5” large format emulsion-based black and white film. I then developed the film by hand with traditional chemical processing techniques. The resulting negative was converted into a digital file through museum-grade Photomultiplier Tube (PMT) scanning. I made minimal adjustments to the scan, resized it, and prepared each panel of the triptych as an individual file in Photoshop. After conducting several test prints to evaluate my choice of paper stock and its rendering of chiaroscuro, I sent the final files to a professional photo-imaging laboratory for digital pigment printing.
This project was made possible with the generous support of Prism Imaging and Ilford Australia.