More than a picture: how the work of documentary photographer Raphaela Rosella is defined by co-creation

Documentary photographers have traditionally aspired to tell other people’s stories. For 15 years, artist Raphaela Rosella and the women close to her have forged their own complex visual narratives, despite frequent interventions by the criminal justice system.

Rosella is an Italian-Australian documentary artist devoted to long-term, socially engaged collaborative projects made with participants from Nimbin, Casino, Lismore and Moree in regional New South Wales.

Aware that photographs can enable stereotypes and mislead viewers, she decided early in her career the people she photographed should be given ongoing control of their representation. This means active collaboration in making images and a body of work, as well as continually seeking consent if sharing it with an audience.

You’ll Know It When You Feel It at Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art has evolved through these relationships.

Rosella and her co-creators have sought to reclaim and counteract the narratives formed by state records, instead telling stories of the love they feel for family and the challenges they’ve faced: both together and when separated by the geography of prison custody.