Fig. 2333 Jie Zhou, ‘Through my voice’, 2025, copper, silver, dimensions variable. Photo by Fred Kroh
Gallery 1
11 - 22 November 2026
Opening Night
13 November | 6 - 8 pm
The exhibition closes at 3 pm on the final day.
Ali Mozafarri
ARTIST STATEMENT
Curiosity doesn’t always kill the cat! It sometimes rewards it, especially if you’re a street photographer.
These portraits all began from there. Something about a person captured my attention and intrigued me and I followed it. It’s very nerve racking but thrilling at the same time when you approach a stranger and ask them if you can take a photo of them. And no two encounters are the same. And for every person who said yes, there are few who said No. And then there are those I was too shy to approach which you regret later.
This series tells the story of 10 curious encounters and what led to making them. Sometimes it was only a few minutes and we barely could talk the same language, and other times it took me a few hours to approach the person and take their portrait. I just feel this urge in the moment to capture that person’s unique look, style or personality and then I do it. And the hope is over time it creates a whole.
At times I lost the inspiration or consistency with my photography but I somehow revived the passion by making myself go back more often to the street, limiting myself to one lens at times. Then I found Sonia Goydenko, a prolific street photographer and educator that has been a great inspiration and influence on me in developing my photography practice and ways of shooting.
This exhibition is a result of me trying to take a more focused approach on my photography and hopefully is a new beginning to new paths.
ARTIST BIO
Ali is a Melbourne-based Iranian-Australian street photographer and filmmaker. He started photography in his 30s by being gifted a camera through his engineering work! He then took photography classes with a prominent documentary photographer in Iran Karim Malak Madani, between 2014 and 2015, which fueled his passion and gave him direction towards documentary and street photography. Ali moved to Australia in 2015 and have been living in Melbourne since July 2015.
Ali’s journey with street photography continued with capturing festivals, events and travels, but after studying the works of street photography masters such as Joel Meyerowitz, Gary Winogrand, Martin Parr and many others, made him take a more focused approach on candid, everyday life moments.
Approaching strangers and taking street portraits in another subgenre of street photography Ali found himself gravitating towards due to his courteous and extroverted personality and the joy he gets out of interacting and meeting strangers.
A decisive step in Ali’s journey was to start working with prolific street photographer Sonya Goydenko in 2025. Ali found Sonya’s work inspirational on Instagram, only to find she’s also a curator and educator on top of being a prolific photographer and ever since been working with her as a mentor and curator.
This is Ali’s first gallery exhibition.
