Photographs and interviews of Australian artists living abroad, by Nathalie Latham.

Foreword by Andrew Sayers, essays by Geoffrey Batchen and Magda Keaney.
Texts in English.

This book has been produced to accompany the exhibition "Australia's creative diaspora photographed by Nathalie Latham" held at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.

A book sponsored by www.elandarts.com

Discover the photographs by Nathalie Latham available in our gallery.

"Being both celebratory pictures of courageous Australians going out there into the unknown, and melancholic pictures of loss, of the loss of another generation of young Australian artistic talent drawn to the lure of elsewhere."
Geoffrey Batchen, New York, from the introduction of Love It and Leave It

Six years ago, Australian-in-Paris, Nathalie Latham, began photographing fellow Australian artists in that city. After photographer Max Pam suggested she take the idea globally, Latham detected a phenomenon. Australian artists were leaving their country in droves. Six years on, Latham launched the book Love It and Leave It: Australia's Creative Diaspora, backed up by an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Love It and Leave It features 106 portraits and scores of interviews with artistic Aussies abroad.

"It's the sheer number of them that gets to you," says Geoffrey Batchen in his passionate introduction. Batchen has spent sixteen years in America, and is Professor of History of Photography, City University, New York. "All these Australian artists, working overseas. One of them says that there are enough Australian musicians working in Europe to form an orchestra. An orchestra of hyphenated Australians. And then there's the art dealer in Beijing, the set designer in London, the architect in Shanghai, the photographer in Paris, the pianist in Berlin, the composer in Los Angeles, the viola player in New York, the dancer in Geneva, the tuba player in Leipzig. Why have they all left? More to the point, why haven't they come back to Australia?"