We are normally horrified by any suggestion that we might be racist. All the same, if we look carefully at ourselves, we will probably find that there are occasions when we fall into the trap of preconception, prejudice, and stereotyping. This series of portraits was made in response to racial profiling and racist comments made by politicians, police and the media in Australia and overseas. At the Winter Olympics in February 2018, an Australian sports commentator made the remark that Chinese athletes all look “the same.” In October 2018 a US presidential candidate made a ‘joke’ in which they stated that African Americans “all look alike”. In that same year police, politicians and media in Australia were accused of racially profiling African youth. The title of this series, They are us, comes from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s speech after the terrorist attack on mosques in Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand, by an Australian white supremacist in 2019.
Sarah Barker makes portrait, social-documentary and street photographs and her work has been exhibited in Australia and internationally, and is held in the collection of the State Library of NSW. Throughout her career Sarah has also worked as a volunteer photographer for a number of not-for-profit organisations.
Sarah Barker lives and works on the unceded land of the Gadigal people in Sydney, Australia, where she began her photography career in a commercial studio in the late 1970s.
With an $80,000 prize pool, it represents a global selection of the best work from emerging and established photographers.
The Head On Photo Festival 2025 is back this November, transforming Sydney into a photography haven with major exhibitions
