sara
orme
Who is Sara Orme...
Sara Orme, based in New Zealand, is primarily focused on uncovering the daily life of human experience. The struggles and joy, lightness and darkness. Rather than a witness she immerses and embraces the life around her.
After completing a degree in Sociology, majoring in Feminist studies & Ethnicity, (1987) she later went on to study photography (1993) with a focus on research, documentary and portrait photography.
The diversity in her personal life, blending both her sociologist sensibility with documentary photography, and the desire to create images of the human condition is the source of inspiration for her projects. From feminism to freedom, to exploring cultural identity, to dreamy almost fashion like imagery in between focused always on creating a powerful narrative.
Orme’s first pioneering project, This Is Not The Red Carpet, (1993) emerged from her immersion of third wave feminism and has since gained a new level of interest and relevance post #MeToo (2018)
Te Teko (2008- )has been a decade long and ongoing. Te Teko project began soon after the death of her Father (Ngati Awa & Te Ararwa) and explores the small populated community of which himself, her Grandmother and her Great Grandmother were born.
Freedom (2010) grew out of Orme’s personal aging and tiresome domestic responsibility at the time. It became an escape to revisit the freedom of her own youth and is characterised by a feminine, dreamlike escapist feeling, informed in part by a contemporary female gaze approach.
Freedom later grew into Girl Undiscovered & Real Girl (2017), informed in part by the female gaze and fourth wave feminist attitudes to the beauty industry. Through story-telling and interviews there is exploration of a new generation of females who essentially say NO to ‘beauty’ as we know it.
Responding to the life around her, Orme’s most recent project, Stroke,(or Ward DG) gives light to her seventy nine year old mother, with so much vitality and intelligence, grappling with new life after her stroke.
Orme’s work is both an investigation of sociological landscapes of both herself and those around her. Her community, feminism and family continue to be central to her work.
EXHIBITIONS, PANELS and TALKS
Herstory
Auckland, NZ. 2020
Womens Work
Group show - 21 female photographers in association with AIPA.
Ellen Melville Centre
Member of Womens Work panel discussion:
Focus on the imbalance around gender in the photographic industry.
Auckland Festival Of Photography
Auckland, NZ. 2019
Panel discussion: Fissure & women in photography
Auckland Library.
This Is Not The Red Carpet
Auckland, NZ . 2019
Auckland Festival Of Photography
Leica Lounge: Behind the lens of a female photo journalist.
Redemption
Auckland NZ. 2012
Solo exhibition,The Keep
Koha
Wellington, NZ. 2009
TePapa.
In collaboration with Ngai Tahu
Aotea Barbi
Christchurch, NZ. 2004
Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls
Centre of Contemporary Art (CoCA),
Group show
FEATURED IN
Idealog
New Zealand Geographic
Catalogue magazine –Australia
Vice-International
Remix magazine-New Zealand
The Red Bulletin International
Metro magazine-New Zealand
Listener magazine -New Zealand
Russh Magazine –Australia
Vice magazine-Australia
Foam Magazine-USA
Lady Gunn -USA
Quint magazine -Dubai
Fallen Magazine -Australia
Yen Magazine –Australia
Lurzurs archive-International
Ad media-New Zealand
D-Photo-New Zealand
Photographers mail-New Zealand
New Zealand Geographic
Quint magazine-Dubai