Nowhere but Somewhere
Kingower Hall
Yanchi Liu, Ali McCann, Takako Osawa, Justine Roche, Eamonn Verberne, Marylou Verberne
You pass through, merely glancing, not really seeing, maybe distracted, thinking about elsewhere. Then, something makes you stop, look again, frame a view, really see, and think differently about the place. Through the camera’s lens, these photographers describe how a nowhere place became somewhere, how the work of art finds, and holds, meaning in a landscape. Bringing art for the very first time to the beautiful St Mary's Church among the vineyards of Kingower, this exhibition shows us how memories are embedded in place, and how not only do we leave traces in our environment, but are marked by where we’ve been and what we see.
Yanchi Liu is an emerging photographic artist based in Melbourne, Victoria. Her work explores themes of life, memory, and emotional presence through quiet observations of everyday environments. With a focus on subtlety and stillness, Yanchi’s images draw meaning from the ordinary. Artist statement: Where do we find ourselves? Where can we escape to in this restless world? Where do we go to heal from brokenness? Nowhere but Somewhere explores these quiet questions through a series of photographic works that trace the emotional landscapes we carry within. Between the seen and the felt, the ordinary and the fragile, these images hold space for stillness, reflection, and memory. Rather than offering answers, Nowhere but Somewhere invites us to sit with the unknown. These works reflect the invisible journeys we undertake — not across distances, but deep within ourselves.
Takako Osawa is a multidisciplinary emerging artist who lives and works on the land of Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunerong Boon Wurrung people of the Eastern Kulin Nation. She works across body, spirituality and often through lens to explore how humans and non-humans are shaped through history and political structures. Her Buddhist and Shinto philosophies acquired in a remote village in Japan during her childhood scanned her environment and continue to evoke social and political discussions on her practices. Her performance photograph Self-Portrait 2023 in which she covered herself with hand collected rubbish from around the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, received the Global Awareness Award at the Graduate Art Prize, University of Melboune in 2024. Depicting the harmonious life with nature of her mother in contrast to a busy Tokyo Street, Reclaim the Land has been selected as a finalist for Emerging Artist at the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Prize in 2025. Her recent site-specific, non-dualistic and scientific enquiry-based work invites viewers to consider ecology holistically and from a non-human perspective. She is currently undertaking a Master of Contemporary Art at the VCA, University of Melbourne, to expand her field of practice.
Justine Roche is a New South Wales-based artist, working on Gadigal and Dharrawal land, whose practice utilises alternative darkroom and digital photographic practices to present contemporary understandings of place. Justine's practice fuses material and elusive elements, ambiguity and beauty found in the ordinary and unexpected. Her current series, Dark Eden (2021 - ), seeks to commemorate the psyche of wetlands as protectors of the earth, exploring the space between the material and the undefinable, sanctuary and vulnerability, and permanence and ephemerality. Mysticism and mythology are considered along with the ways memory, sensory experience, and photography shape our perception of these critical habitats. Justine completed her Masters of Fine Art in 2022 at the National Art School, Sydney, and her works Here / Now, 2019 and Dark Eden, 2022, are included in their permanent collection.
Eamonn Verberne is a Melbourne-based photographic artist and graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). His work navigates the conceptual terrain between place and placelessness, questioning the constructed narratives of tourism and the commodification of landscape. With a keen eye for irony and aesthetic tension, Verberne examines liminal spaces—those in-between zones where presence and absence blur. His practice reflects a deep interest in the contradictions of contemporary travel, where novelty and detachment coexist. Through his lens, moments of disconnection reveal their own quiet, uncanny beauty.
Marylou Verberne is a lens-based, multi-disciplinary artist working on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in the Central Victorian Goldfields. Her practice explores the entangled histories of landscape, memory, and mineral extraction through photography, mixed-media and installation. Working with both archival and contemporary materials, Marylou reflects on the ecological and cultural legacies of colonisation, particularly in local sites shaped by the gold rush. Her work spans visual and social inquiry, informed by a background in documentary film-making and social innovation, and is grounded in ethical storytelling, place-based research, and a deep attentiveness to land and memory.
