My Favourite Australian Exhibition
National Portrait Gallery

My Favourite Australian was a unique multi-platform collaboration between the National Portrait Gallery and the ABC in 2008, which called on the public to vote for their favourite Australians in two categories, Popular Heroes and Unsung Heroes. Leading Australian artists and filmmakers were then commissioned to create short moving image portraits of each subject, creating a wonderfully engaging and diverse juxtaposition of portraiture.

The exhibition included video portraits of famous Australians including Gough Whitlam, Fred Hollows and Olivia Newton-John and was one of the exhibitions at the opening of the new National Portrait Gallery in Canberra in December 2008. Following the exhibition, the digital portraits were broadcast as short videos on the ABC.

Image Credit: Still from: Merilyn Fairskye, William Deane, 2008 Single-channel video, duration 03:00. Produced in association with Australian Broadcasting Corporation © 2008 Australian Broadcasting Corporation

http://www.portrait.gov.au/exhibitions/my-favourite-australian-2008