A Collaboration Born at Head On

When Rachel Nixon exhibited her series The Garden of Maggie Victoria at Head On Photo Festival in Sydney in November 2024, a simple introduction opened the door to a collaboration she could not have foreseen.

It was there that Head On Creative Director Moshe Rosenzveig OAM introduced her to fellow Vancouver-based artist Lorna Carmichael. Despite both artists being based in Vancouver, Canada, it took a trip to Australia to discover they were working on remarkably similar themes of memory, family archives and intergenerational connection.

Sixteen months later, their joint exhibition Between Memory and Light opened at Gallery 881 in Vancouver, running until 25 March 2026. The show brings together two bodies of work rooted in family memory. Rachel’s photo-collage series restores the story of her great-grandmother Maggie Victoria, nearly erased from family memory after her death in wartime England in 1943. Lorna’s short film Dear Elizabeth weaves together family film and photographs, period footage and her own imagery, guided by a found box of handwritten letters from her father during his national service.

This is exactly the kind of connection Head On aims to foster, bringing artists together in ways that extend well beyond the festival itself.

“We wanted to send a huge thank you to the Head On team for creating the space where this partnership began,” the artists wrote recently.

Visit Gallery 881 in Vancouver to see Between Memory and Light, and read more about Rachel’s Head On Photo Festival 2024 exhibition here.