Mother Country

In 1996, photographer Helga Salwe moved to a farm in North-East Victoria to raise a family, leaving her career as a photojournalist behind her, or so she thought. Here she made a vegetable garden, lived with the beauty, simplicity and peace of country life, as well as with drought and bushfire. Out of this period of her life came these exquisitely beautiful photographs capturing family, nature and life in a small rural farming community. Every image evoking intense emotion ranging from joy to melancholy. In 2015 Five Mile Press published a book of the Mother Country images and since then the images have been widely exhibited to critical acclaim.

Helga Salwe’s work is exhibited both within Australia and internationally. The Mother Country exhibition has been featured at the 'Pingyao International Photography Festival' in China, the 'Headon Photo Festival' in Sydney and the 'Auckland Photo Festival' in New Zealand. Her work is held in both private and public collections, including The National Portrait Gallery of Australia, The National Library of Australia and The Epworth Art Foundation. She has been shortlisted twice for the prestigious Bowness Photographic Prize and holds a Masters in Contemporary Art from the Victorian College of the Arts. She is also a member of Mapgroup, an independent collective of documentary photographers.