OUR WORK
PAPER MOON:
Images of Japan
Photography
Tony Maniaty
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Curation
Kathryn Hunyor, Director ArtsPeople​
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Artist
Tony Maniaty
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Partners
North Sydney Council
Kirribilli Neighbourhood Centre
Pixel Perfect printing
The Japan Foundation, Sydney
Head On Photo Festival 2025 (Sydney)
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Links
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Kirribilli Neighbourhood Centre Gallery Open Day
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Credits
All images © Tony Maniaty 2025
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Dates
15 – 28 November 2025
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Concept
In late 2024 and again in early 2025, photographer Tony Maniaty spent two months travelling through Japan, interpreting the country through his lens, exploring quiet backroads as well as the bustle of Tokyo. These two working trips resulted in more than one-thousand photographs, from which curator Kathryn Hunyor has sequenced 21 exceptional monochrome images.
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The captivating impossibility of truly understanding, clearly defining, and creatively portraying, the country called ‘Japan’ lies at the heart of the exhibition. Tony Maniaty and Kathryn Hunyor created a shared if somewhat contradictory space, presenting images taken by a first-time visitor (Tony) and selected by a long-time devotee (Kathryn). In visual terms the photographs are not always immediately recognisable as Japan, and yet they achieve something we are often striving for: a universal, shared moment in which to find our Japan.
The Artist
Tony Maniaty is a Sydney-based photographer, author and academic. His career has covered numerous roles: as a journalist, producer and foreign correspondent with the ABC, SBS and BBC; as a fiction and non-fiction writer published by Penguin Books; and as Associate Professor of Creative Practice at UTS. He is Features Editor of the Head On Interactional photography magazine, and his photographs have appeared internationally, including in the Paris-based ‘Eye of Photography’. Tony has held two previous exhibitions at the Kirribilli Neighbourhood Centre (KNC) gallery: in 2021, ‘Our Hearts Are Still Open’, with street images of Paris during the 2020 Covid pandemic; and in 2023, ‘The Planet of Possibilities’, featuring images taken in France, UK, Greece, Turkey and Australia. Both were part of the Head On Photo Festival.
The Curator
Kathryn Hunyor is a Japanese-speaking curator, lecturer and interviewer, and Head of International Tours at the Art Gallery of NSW. Formerly Cultural Officer at the Australian Embassy in Tokyo, she collaborates with artists and arts organisations in Australia and Japan, and regularly leads specialist cultural tours. Kathryn holds a Masters in Japanese literature and is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Technology, Sydney, on the symbiosis of art and business in Japan since 1900.
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Open Day Viewing
‘Paper Moon: Images of Japan’ is part of the Open Program of this year's Head On Photo Festival, Australia's leading photography event. The exhibition will be open for public viewing on Saturday 15 November, 2025, at the Kirribilli Neighbourhood Centre Gallery, 16-18 Fitzroy Street, Kirribilli, from 12-5pm. Tony Maniaty and Kathryn Hunyor will be there to chat with visitors about the work. For other viewing times, please ring the Kirribilli Neighbourhood Centre on (02) 9922 4428.
Lecture
Tony Maniaty and Kathryn Hunyor will also present an illustrated lecture on photography in Japan on Thursday 13 November at 6-7pm in Stanton Library, North Sydney.
Bookings at: https://www.northsydney.nsw.gov.au/events/event/1204/photography-of-japan-with-tony-maniaty
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To Purchase Prints
All works are original, signed photographic prints on archive-quality German papers.
Visit the artist’s site to purchase custom prints.
