- Hello and welcome everyone. It's great to see you all streaming in from all over Australia and probably overseas as well. My name's Robert, I'm here at the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, by the banks of the beautiful Lake Burley Gryphon. It's my job to welcome you and to give you a few housekeeping tips before we get underway with our in conversation with photographer, Polly Borland. We're very excited Polly's online from LA. And just before we get started, if you'd like to be part of the conversation, why don't you use the chat function, which you can probably find at the bottom of your screen, if you're on a laptop, and if you wanna get started, why not put into the chat function where you're dialling in from today? 'Cause we're always very excited to see our geographic reach. We have got live captions today, machine generated. So they're not always perfectly accurate, but if you'd like to access those, go to the live transcript button in your Zoom menu as well. We are recording today's session, it'll probably appear on our website at some stage, so just be aware of that. Today, we're broadcasting from the National Portrait Gallery itself, and we are on the lands of the and Ngunnawal and Namadgi peoples. And I'd like to acknowledge their elders past, present, and emerging and acknowledge their continuing connection to the lands and the waters and the communities and the skies of this beautiful Canberra region. So without any further ado, I'm going to cross over now to Gill, who's gonna be in conversation with Polly in Los Angeles.
- Thanks so much, Robert, thank you for that lovely introduction. And I would like to extend an extremely warm welcome. It's a bit warmer here than it is there, I'm afraid to see the wonderful Polly Borland and Polly, thank you so much for joining us today.
- Thanks for having me.
- Polly, I think my love affair with your work began all the way back in 2001, when the National Portrait Gallery, before it was in the building that you see behind me here, we didn't have a purpose built building at that time back in 2001, we were smushed in with old parliament house, but we were known for our cutting-edge and our exciting exhibitions. And one of those exhibitions was called Australians and it was a whole raft of portraits by Polly Borland. So Polly, would you like to maybe give a little intro to our audiences a little bit about yourself and then we might jump into some of those images that were featured in that Australians exhibition?
- Yeah, so, okay. Well, I studied in Melbourne Australia. My memory of dates and years is not brilliant, but it was the early eighties. And I was studying at Parang college, which is now the BCI. And I was an art college, which had fine art sculpture, printmaking, all sorts of different mediums and they had photography. So I studied there and in those days it was only a diploma. So I got a diploma of photography, but we had brilliant lecturers and they are all working in their various fields of photography and film. We had some filmmakers as well. So that's where I started. I actually, before that, I started in high school. I went to a school called Tenedon up in the hills and it was a hippie school and I loved art history but I felt that I couldn't draw paint. And in those days when you studied art history, you had to be able to do a practical subject as well at IHSC level. And so one day the teacher said to me, well, if you don't feel you can draw paint, why don't I set up a dark for you? So actually that's where it all started. At the end of my high school years, I started taking photos and I've been taking photos for probably about 40 years now. And I'm still shooting film. So that's really where I started. And portraits came first will fashion and portraits. I gave away the fashion when I moved to England and started doing mainly portraits and repertory for magazines. So I was sort of an editorial photographer, but my always my first blog or my first intention was really to exhibit my work, but people were always central to my practise. So that's really where I started. And the Australians came about because of the National Portrait Gallery in London used to buy some of my portraits and day. I had a very good relationship with Terrence Pepper, who was the curator of photography there. And one day I said to him, so how do you get a show here? And he went, well, you've got to come up with a good idea. And I even think it was his idea that I did prominent Australians in London or in England that were living in England. So that's how that all came about. And of course I snuck a few of my friends in as well. So yeah, which was great. So that's how that happened.
- Should we have a little look through some of those images because a lot of those actually ended up in the National Portrait Gallery of Australia's collection. So maybe we can that flick through to the next slide, Robert and have a little look through some of the selections. Oh, do you want to talk about Nick first Polly? Or should we go onto the Australians?
- Let's go onto the Australians and then Nick kind of, yeah. Well, this actually wasn't done for the Australians. This was done for a magazine in Australia when I was back visiting once and Australian Star magazine, I think it was. And I hate, they asked me to do various Australian music industry people, and I managed to get John Farnham, which actually I really enjoyed doing. And so, yeah, this is one from that, but it wasn't actually in the Australian show because he never lived in England. Although he might've been English by birth. I don't know. I don't remember that, but.
- It hasn't been really distinctive. I mean, obviously he's lying on a bed of some kind, so there's a sort of a duner or a bedspread, but your portraits actually have that distinctive backdrop, which is very carefully curated by yourself. Was this early in that kind of development of that amazing backdrop.
- It kind of, yeah, so probably was, and this we found the best location in Melbourne, but I cannot, it was like an old hotel, but it was all like original deco I was told. I mean, there's a whole lot of other photos from this series and they're really like the setting. The location was amazing. So it was a hotel. So this was probably a hotel bed and this was probably the bedspread on the bed in the hotels. So, and I just don't remember the exact details, which I'm afraid everyone's gonna have to bear with me. 'Cause there's not a lot I remember nowadays, but this, I just remember it was art deco. It was an incredible setting on of course was this in the Australians show. It maybe I took this to the Australian show. And this was, I'd actually photographed Michael, when he was in access, I'd done a music video with somebody where it was all stills and I were animated. It was, I'm not, yeah, I can't remember the name, but it was for their breakout hit for America, which I think all you need or, something like that. And anyways, so I knew Michael, this was taken for the Australian. Richard Lowenstein was the director of the video. Anyway, this was taken for the Australian show and I went, he was living with Paula Yachts, their baby and all their kids in Bob Geldof's house. Somehow they'd ended up in Bob even though they are all with Bob Geldof, they'd ended up in Bob Geldof house. And he was in Michael's house. And I went there and took this photo. And this was not long before, he had that terrible accident. And then, well, we don't know how he really, we know how he died, but we don't know. I don't think we know exactly what happened, but he was lovely. That's all I can say about Michael. He was lovely. And this is quite a sort of, it's a bit disturbing this portrait. It's a little bit religious, I think, it's quite weird, but I'd kind of gotten into trying to contort my sitters at that point. It was sort of a development that came from make sort of not really been finding portraiture, creatively satisfying. So I used to try and get my sitters in interesting shapes with their bodies. And that's how this one came about.
- That's interesting paper should hold that thought in their mind too, because when we go on to look at some in your morph series that sort of develops even further, but let's have another look at some of the other portraits that came out of the Australians exhibition. This one is Robert May.
- I think he was the chief scientific advisor to the government at this point. And we took this in then Natural History Museum in London. And this is an Tasmanian, what is it?
- As many endeavour or a, thylacine a thylacine says our resident expert on animals.
- I'm not, everything was- In those days it was before everything in museums, to become a no-no, to, I mean, I think I still do probably have stuffed animals. Don't go in some museum, but anyway, he really didn't want to do this. And I managed to get him to do it. And I love it. He was again, another great person, but he really didn't want to do this. And somehow I managed to convince him that it would be a good idea. And so he did it. And then of course this was totally Celez Patterson's idea and of course it is a brilliant photo. And I think Barry Humphreys used it in one of his memoirs after the fact. And so, yeah, I love this photo and I loved him. He is one of those people that is funny naturally. Like you made a lot of funny people that are funny as performers, but they're not really funny in real life. He was naturally funny in real life and very charismatic and charming. So, and he rang me personally to thank me for the photos after every time he wanted to use one, he rang me and asked me personally, if he could use it, I think he even ran me the night that I had the opening at the National Portrait Gallery in London to wish me luck and to say, sorry that he couldn't be there, but he was touring. He's just the most lovely person. So yeah.
- I look at those smooth legs compared to that, to the visage it's he's known for is his legs.
- Oh, he's more legs. And this has got a really interesting story to it because again, Jemine Christine this photo has accused, me of manipulating her to be naked and on the bed, it was her idea to be on the bed and her idea to be naked on the bed. So let's get the record straight. Of course, I thought all my Christmases had come once at once when she offered to be photographed on the bed and I could. And then the Sun newspaper in London who was known in those days for their page three girls wanted to publish this as their page three girl, this photo of just your mind Greer. And she was really up for it. But I said, no, we can't do that. That's really demeaning of you and the photo. So I refused to let them do it. And I think there was another tabloid that did publish it without permission, as in another instance. But since she said that I, manipulated her, but she also has been interviewed years and years ago saying that I think Diane Arbus when Diane Arbus took her photo, Diane Arbus manipulated her too, into doing something that she didn't want to do. But anyway, this was total gold that a dream come through for Jemine agreeing to do that. And this is Elle McPherson. I had to go to the Elle in Switzerland. It was very stressful. But again, I really like this picture it's good to say. I really, she wanted to wear a cowboy hat and I said, no, I really not. That's not. And she said, oh, I'm thinking. She said, I was thinking of in pen. And she was thinking, who's the photographer that used to use all his dogs in them. And he used to anyway, she was thinking of a totally different, maybe even her Brits. She was thinking over Brits, And I was thinking over in pen, anyway, she came around to having, Penn in the end
- And then all that contortion going on in there as well.
- Exactly, she's got no arms.
- This classic.
- Yeah, so, well, this is the queen weirdly came about through the Australians show because there was a lot of Australians working in the publicity department at the palace.
- That's how you get into the palace.
- Yeah, and I think even the head publicity person who, again, the name, although he's actually I photographed him for this collection actually, but I can't remember his name. He was also the head of the publicity department. but it was a younger girl and the remit for the golden Jubilee was let's get some younger people in to photograph the coin women and also people from the Commonwealth. So I qualified on, I don't think I was particularly young at this point, but I qualified on two counts. I was Australian and I was a woman. And so that's how I got to take this photo. And probably, there's a lot of written accounts of what happened, but it was extremely stressful. I only had five minutes. I did two set ups. I thought I'd get 10 rolls of film five on each and I only got two rolls of film on each background. And yeah. And then this was a tapestry that was made from the photo, but this is the wrong side of the tapestry. And the tapestries were made years and years later from the photo. And this was shown in Los Angeles. There was a whole series of these and they all look different from the wrong side because they're all different stitches that had stitched them in the stitches of prisoners that work, they get paid, they work stitching for charity called Fine Cell Work. And they have been going into prisons, teaching female and male prisoners to do stitching tapestries as more of a therapeutic thing that they do get paid and they're taught the craft. And then they do a lot of things like the cushions for the BNI. Like they actually work. And I think cushions for the Catholic church. Like they do a lot of work that is, and other artists use them as well. But anyway, the good news is they get paid and they get taught a craft and a lot of them come out of prison and continue to do it. So, and then this was the other photo I did of the queen. And this one she was quite shocked about when she looked back, she went, oh, she was surprised by the gold glitter, but she was faced by the I think the kind of modernist take of this. This is Marianne Mecca fabric and Martin Grant actually, who's a really good friend of mine. Who's a fashion designer who now lives in Paris, he's Australian. He suggested this fabric. And I thought it was very fitting because it was a nod to Cecil Beaton who used to do a lot of floral painted backgrounds. And he was obviously the Royal photographer for years and years and years. So it was kind of my updated version on his work. So, yeah.
- Fantastic, and here's the gold Lamaze come out again for this one.
- Different gold lame but same idea. And this was taken just after everything happened to Monica and I was working with a journalist who was the only person in England to get an interview with her. And I managed to get to do the photo.
- What a cracker of a photo Polly? I mean that expression.
- Yeah, yeah. And she was on the stage. She'd arrived in England, and all the tabloid press were after her and calling her fat. And it was awful. We nearly didn't get to do it because she's so upset by the British press's treatment. Although, I mean, I don't know what they really liked now. I'm sure they're just as visual. They are as vicious it's Murdoch, she was having a really hard time. And also she'd just been through what she'd been through, as well. She was pretty upset, yeah.
- Yeah, and so the backdrops by now had family cemented themselves as something that's integral to your work. Is that something that's continued on into other series or have you shifted now towards other ways or other forms of photography, not just portraiture.
- So simultaneously as all of this was going on. When I was doing the Australians, I was doing the adult babies, which I think in the slide, seriously.
- Or should skip ahead to the adult babies and have a look at them now?
- Maybe we could do that.
- Yep, so we'll just give Robert a second to bring up the right slide. Thanks Robert, there we go.
- So the adult babies was taken simultaneously as I was doing the Australians and the book actually of the adult baby work came at the same time as the same year as the catalogue for the Australians show. And this was more, I considered more my personal work. And so basically, this was more my repertoire Taj sort of portrait work more the darker side of what I was doing, but still very stylized because obviously it was a very surreal subject matter, that I was dealing with and then the next body of work kind, the portraiture started to page out. I had my son in 2001. And so the portrait work didn't really fit having a child 'cause I used to travel the world, doing the portrait work and travel a lot within England. And also I hadn't moved to digital and everything was going digital and I'd kind of gotten burnt out from all the editorial work. So I started exclusively more and more just doing my own work and then came, what we were at before, which is that the bunny series, which is the red Robert, if you don't mind going back to the red ones. Yes, so this, I seen Gwendoline Christie who was Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones.
- I realised make that connection
- She lived in Brighton, England, and she was six foot four. And I used to say walking down the street and I used to think, oh my God, she's so fascinating. She looks incredible. And she looked in those days, like a 1950 starlet. And so one day I'd had my son, I was thinking, well, I don't want to travel the world. I want to be able to fit my work around him. And so then one day I just sort of got the courage up and marched into where I figured out where she worked, because she was very- Brighton's a small town and that's where I lived at the time. And I figured out where she worked, I'd kind of tracked her down. And I went in and I said, would you like to be photographed? I'd love to photograph you anyway she agreed to it. And this body I'm in the babies. I did seven years of work on.
- Wow.
- And then this body of worked with me five years and this common I didn't the bunny book, 50 images, other criteria, which was Damien Hirst company published it. And Damien Hirst actually ended up acquiring all 50 images for his series. And this is sort of like the he always mentioned really what we did when, and we ended up, I was exploring sort of 1950s pinups at the beginning, but by the end of it, we were kind of dressing her up in all different sort of archetype, the way women are sort of identified, sort of there my dogs, by the way everyone I don't quite know what I'm gonna do to keep them quiet.
- That's okay, we don't mind having the dogs at all.
- And so things like a bunny costume, there was a pony costume. There are all different costumes that she moved into. It became quite experimental in some moments as well. So that's sort of the whole book and yeah. Anyway, so that came first. And then, I mean, we weren't necessarily, we don't need to go chronological really necessarily next this work time later, but this is my son, Louise, and this was called not good at human.
- I love that.
- Yeah, and this was shown at Sullivan Strunk in Sydney. And these also some of these who made into tapestries as well. And they are also shown at the NGV as part of my show in 2018. My son is incredible person, but he's very unusual and I mean, this is a long time ago now he's 20 years old now. I can't even remember. It would have been maybe 14, 13, maybe here 13 probably. And the idea was I was gonna sort of photograph him through his whole teen years, but that didn't pan out. He got bored very quickly. He was like, no, I'm not into this. So it's sort of only lasted maybe sporadically over a year. And when that one's really sort of evokes a lot, really. So, and this was, was this we'll know when really was the beginning of the use of stockings work? And then when we get to, I don't know what's next? What do have we got? Oh yeah, this is still not good at human.
- So we sort of moving into morph after not good at human.
- All right, the babies, that's the instant. That was the show in London, by the way was I think, no, if we go that's morph, I mean, I can go into morph Now this was the 2018 work that I produced specifically for the NGV and yeah, NGV in Melbourne. And this is called morph and this was sort of the penultimate stocking use. And this came about because I really wanted to reduce the visual language. So I sort of even though you can see a figure in there, if we keep going Robert, a lot of the, and you can see a figure in that one, but a lot of them, you can't really tell what there's a human in them in the costumes. And basically I'm creating soft sculpture on the spot around a live model. And for instance, there's a person in there. So this was a whole book guy in about 50 photos. There's a person in there as well. And so that was morph.
- And that was commissioned for the Polybius exhibition. Was it Polly at the NGV? .
- It wasn't really commissioned, but I did it to kind of be the main body of the exhibition. I did also a morph film, which was done and then the other work was sort of, we didn't have babies in there, but we had all Bonnie, we had not good at human. We had a lot of the tapestries. We had the Nick blue. So we had the tapestries and these were double sided in the exhibition. So there was the right side and the wrong side. Whereas the queen ones, you can see maybe different in texture and they're like the patterns made from a photograph. So they're originally a photo. And I just, someone found in a crop shop years ago, for me, stitch your photo, it's called. So a lot of people get their portraits made or they get a pattern from their little family portraits and they do stitching to create the portrait, but in tapestry form. And I thought, well, I'll apply that to my own work. So I don't know if we jumping too much all over the place. I mean, I can follow, but I've just hope everyone else can, are you following?
- Yeah, well, I think we're all following along. I haven't got any questions yet, through on the chat Polly, but if anyone out there, either in Zoom or on Facebook would like to ask Polly a question, please do shoot them through on the chat function. And I'll make sure that I get those questions to Polly. Polly, there was a, a lovely quote. And I usually don't like digging up old quotes from the past, but I will this time just because it seemed so, but when you had your work at the Australians exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, there was a quote that we got from you at that time back in 2001 saying "the best portraiture is when you get beneath the skin of someone and you penetrate beneath the surface". And it just seemed to me that those morph works, or that morph series is very kind of visceral it's almost as though the body has been removed of the skin and you're seeing the internal organs moving around. You could almost imagine that. I was just wondering if you had any comments on that shift below the surface?
- Yeah, I think that was probably done subconsciously, but I do think that I became less interested in the external sort of identifying marks of a human or an animal, for instance, like this rabbit was done for smudge, which came directly after the bunny series and smudge, I started trying to sort of subvert animal forms, and then it very quickly grew into something like this. So this is part of the same series, but then I started to create my own creatures. So that was and again identifiable, but it's almost like there's a pig nose here this sort of ware wolf will mask. And then there's this sort of, I don't even know if it's a dog or a dog costume. I used to go to the costume houses and hard costumes and then I'd make up whatever I wanted, but quickly that became quite limiting. So then I went into the realms of the imagination, which became the next steps. So, which if we keep going on this series.
- I think they're the only ones that we have from that series in there.
- Really?
- We were just wondering whether we had a question from Facebook asking about the Nick cave images that we sort of skipped over a little bit earlier in the presentation. Would you mind touching on those a little bit? There was Nick cave in a blue wig and then yeah.
- It's nice to see everything, yeah, again. So this came around the same time smudge, which were the ones we were just looking at, and this was done as a special commission. He did a, collab with the band and it was very sort of a bit disco, kind of a bit glam rocky. And so I decided to dress him like this, and simultaneously he had offered to pose for the smudge work for me. So he gave me two days of his time and I dressed him on always weird costumes. And if we go to the image, either directly after this one, I think with the clown nose, so after this of before this.
- [Gill] It is there.
- This was from smudge. And I dressed him like this, and that was from the smudge series, but there were all these others, like people should just Google smudge and you'll see all these other images, which should basically, I use three models. Nick is one of the models, there was another model that I'd spent more time with. And then there was a female model. So, friends basically. So Nick kindly offered, and this was also made into a tapestry, which I kept 'cause I love it so much. So yeah. So I mean, what else do they, I suppose that's really all I can say, the blue Nick cave week has been bought and it can be seen sometimes at the NGV. So they acquired that.
- You mentioned very early on in the talk that you started studying at school art history, and I can definitely see a few references to other artists. Would you be able to let us know maybe some of your big influences who have influenced your career over the time?
- Well, Diane Arbus was my first love and Weegee, Larry Clark, early Cindy Sherman and I love, but there was sort of the modernist painters like a Castro, Paul Clay, there was a lot of painting that I loved. And now my favourite photography is repertory. Actually, it's sort of documentary photography now, which in a way Diane Arbus was portraiture, but it was also very much from a documentary kind of point of view, I think she was documenting, I never felt that I was really using the camera to document the baby's is a document but portraits were more, I don't really know what the portraits were, even though that was something that kind of came really easily to me. I think that I don't know about now, but back in the day I was good with people. I was good at making people feel relaxed. And I think, again, over time for me, it's not really the outsides, it's more, the insides. Like the morph work is very much like the of interiors of people with the guts, or however you want to describe it, but it was also, supposed to be not human as well. So there's a lot of non-human things that I've arrived at which weed wise, very human. I don't know if that makes any sense, I think we all feel at some point, not maybe all of us, but I definitely felt very dislocated from my surroundings and I do think there are sort of other realms to be explored. I think there are other paradigms. I think I was very married to sort of a psychological kind of analysis of the world. And I think things are a little bit more brutal and less a little bit more, kind of base in my analysis I think at the end of the day, we're kind of animals let's face it. And some of us behave better than others.
- That's true.
- So I became less interested in what it is to be human or not human and more interested in something else. And the morph work I do love, and this is just a little snake kind of spoiler alert, I'm now starting to work in a sculptural realm.
- Oh, sorry.
- Yeah, and nudity is probably the penultimate revealing after a while, I realised that with the morph work, I use one model and right from the get go, I said to her, you're gonna have to take your clothes off. So if you want to work for me, you're going to need to, even though you can bail, sometimes you can sort of see her nakedness, but not often. And I think for me, the nudity is the penultimate of my photographic work. And basically these are all iPhone, and again, I've never done digital until this moment.
- Wow, I was gonna ask you if you shifted away from films. So this is it, this series.
- So this is iPhone selfies. So, and this is work's gonna be shown in Australia next year. And it's the most unflattering, horrible photos of myself, but I decided it was time to put myself on the line because I'd spent years photographing other people and years photographing other people naked or kind of in pretty vulnerable positions. And so I decided to put myself in the frame and it's almost like the end of something, but also again, another, another jumping off point for me. And that work, as I said, will be shown in Australia next year. And it was shown this year in Los Angeles, in my gallery, in Los Angeles. So yeah, so that's, and there's about, I think 20 images in that series. Yeah, maybe a few more. So that was me deciding to reveal myself, 'cause I've always been a fairly, a contrary what my photos might convey about myself. I've been quite self-conscious and shy and quite sort of prudish in my own life. So it really was a big thing for me to be able to do and then not flattering. And a lot of them were taken in COVID and where I'd just basically spent time eating, comforting my wife through COVID. And so, yeah, that's sort of. Is there any other images that we've missed out on or did we cover all of them?
- No, I think we've covered all of them. We do have one question though, about working in LA the US and how that might differ to the UK and Australia.
- Well, I'm not a working photographer anymore, so I don't know what that question pertains two, I've done a couple of portraits in more recent years, one in Australia and one for English Vogue shot here with Nick Cave and Suzy Cave. And that was for English Vogue and yeah. So, but in terms of my own work, I think it took me a long time here to find my feet because I was very culture shocked coming to America. I mean, I was culture shock going from Australia to England, but because when I grew up in Australia, a lot of it was sort of endless fault. It kind of was an easier transition, but America is really something that I still can't really get my head around, so I was very culture shocked. So it really took a long time for me to be able to relax into myself. And I think I'm the kind of person that needs to feel fairly relaxed in order to be able to work. So it was a big jump and I'm still not really used to America. And I spent a year and a half back in Australia after 30 years of not being in Australia cause I just happened I went back to get an American visas. Our family went back to get American visas and we got caught in lockdown. And then after a while we realised we were probably very lucky and it was really interesting to reconnect with Australia and I really loved it and I felt very comfortable with it even though on a political level I think there's a lot of issues, but there's a lot of issues everywhere. I found it interesting in Australia that there's not more people aren't more vocal about things that are wrong with the system and the prejudices and yeah. I mean, I find that really disturbing and to me a a while again to sort of really understand what was going on because I hadn't lived there for so long and not missed out on 30 years of growth and change because there has been a lot of growth in change since I left. But there's also a lot of things that have really stayed the same. So yeah, and the whole climate change thing and it's just mind boggling, but anyway, if you want to get me on politics, I'm happy to talk about it for two hours.
- I would love to get you started on politics, but we literally have just run out of time. I'm so sorry, Polly. I could actually sit and listen to your stories all day. I am such a big fan of your work as I'm sure most of the people in our audience are as well. If they weren't before there definitely will be now. So thank you so much, Polly.
- I hope it was informative and not too much all over the place.
- It was brilliant. And I cannot wait until I see what's next for Polly Borland. And because I just think your concepts and the things that you tackle in your work are just so fascinating and intriguing and interesting. So I'm looking forward to seeing nudie in Australia next year, but I'm also looking forward to seeing the hint of the sculptural work because I just think that will be absolutely brilliant. So thank you so much, Polly. And thank you much to everybody else. I'll throw it back to Robert to say farewell.
- [Polly] Thanks everyone.
- Thanks so much, Gill. Thank you so much, Polly. That was a fascinating discussion. And to tell you the truth, I feel that I've missed out on hearing the next political discussion, maybe next year. Thank you everyone for dialling in. This is our last virtual programme for 2021. What an amazing and interesting year, this has been full of travails and triumphs. We have pumped out a lot of digital content for you. I would like to extend a personal debt of gratitude to all of our content providers, all the people that we've been in conversation with all of our curators, our learning facilitators and our other staff who have created content for getting the national portrait gallery collection and programmes out to the people of Australia and also around the world. And also extending thanks to all of the people behind the scenes and the digital team, the Hectors, Alanas, Matts, Jules who have wrangled the technology to make all of this virtual programming possible. If you would like to catch up on some of our programming from 2021, go to our website, portrait.gov.au. And under the watch section, you can find a lot of our in conversations and watch them in your own time, over the summer break. And you can go to our what's on section to find out what is coming up in 2022. We start our digital programming on the 20th of January, but we get right back into the swing of it at the beginning of February with our regular Tuesday virtual highlights tours. All right, that's enough for me. Season's greetings to you all. I hope you have great break over the summer period and we'll catch you next year. See you later, bye-bye.
