An Interview with Matt Dunne
Based in Melbourne, Australia, Matt Dunne has been involved in photography for 11 years — first as a self-taught photographer, then as a writer –including here at C4 Journal– and, more recently, as a publisher. His first book, The Killing Sink, has just been published by Void; in 2021, he founded Tall Poppy Press, an independent publisher with a focus on emerging Australian photographers. Callum and Eugenie spoke with Matt early in 2022.
Eds: You’re involved with photography as a photographer, as a writer on photography, and more recently as a publisher. Can you talk a bit about how you got started and how your interest in photography developed? Which came first, the pictures or the writing? And what inspired you to move into publishing?
MD: When I was 22 I moved from Melbourne to a decent-sized rural hub, about a day’s drive from Melbourne. I didn’t know anyone there and I had a lot of time on my hands, especially on weekends. So I’d just walk, walk, walk, for hours, 2, 3, 4 hours at a time. At the same time, I’d sort of stumbled into Tumblr at the beginning of its end and there were loads of posts about the New Topographics which is a really accessible form of photography. Someone like Steven Shore, I’d look at his photos and think ‘hey that’s not so different from what I see everyday’. So I bought a $100 pocketable point and shoot and just went for it. Pictures came first, just as a way to show what I was seeing when I roamed around the backblocks of nowhere.
My interest in photography developed a lot through online material. I lived rurally for ages and, even when I didn’t live in the country, none of my friends at that time were artists, so I read a lot of interviews, listened to podcasts, read reviews, etc. I think that internet-led development really brought me to books – not a lot of online content is exhibition related, so I was growing as a photographer at the same time I was seeing more and more books.


I think two other things have really affected my development as a photographer: living in the UK and writing. Living in the UK was the first time I ended up with a community of friends who were keen artists and photographers. I learned so much from the time I spent with them and also learned that I’m a project-based artist. I took like 150 rolls of film worth of photos while I was there and have nothing to show for it because it doesn’t work together at all. The UK was also a place where I went to a few photobook events – Photobook Bristol, Offprint. These were small things, in the scheme of it all, but were really fun and opened up some doors in my mind.
Writing, though, came from a weird place. A friend of mine, Barney Couch, and I were talking one evening and we wondered about how cool it would be to ask Missy Prince about gardening, or Gerry Johannson about working alone. Both of us felt, and I still feel, that so many interviews cover incredibly similar ground, often thoughtlessly regurgitating the same 5 questions as if the audience are not familiar with the person. Realistically, most of the people reading interviews with artists on platforms like these are enthusiastic and familiar, so why not give them something new? So we started This on That, which was quite popular for the effort we put in and of which I’m still really proud.
Reviewing has been an amazing learning tool for me because I have to think quite hard: what is going on here, what does this mean, why is this first or last?
As This on That took off, I started also reviewing books – just a few a year for The Heavy Collective. Reviewing has been an amazing learning tool for me because I have to think quite hard: what is going on here, what does this mean, why is this first or last? The first review that I really grew through was when I reviewed Raymond Meeks’ Halfstory Halflife and I had to work things out – I couldn’t just gush, I had to be a bit more structured. Writing is a great thing, for me, I was trained as a writer and feel absolutely no pain, struggle or difficulty in writing. I’m quite an intuitive writer and have a fairly strong voice – I tend to write as I talk, longer sentences, lots of short clauses, colloquially and warmly.
Art is in the heart for me, if I have to think first instead of feel first I’d prefer to just read. That’s a bit dismissive but I’m just trying to be honest – cerebral, heady work suffocates my enjoyment of art. It’s like music, I want to feel like dancing, not be thinking about the song.


What inspired me to become a publisher? Well, other people had done it and I thought ‘well it can’t be that hard’ and, truthfully, it isn’t because I worked out how I wanted to try it, with my resources, time and geography. A lot of publishing is just logistics – what’s coming out next, when will it be released, what’s the printing timeline, etc. It’s effortful but not that hard. It also helps that I have an incredibly modest schedule and print run for each project. The aim, from day one, was to sell out by keeping total printing numbers low, rather than try and get books in everyone’s hands. So, I’m not saying it’s easy to show off or to be glib, but rather I thought hard about how Tall Poppy Press could be consistent and relatively painless for me, a guy with some free time, a day job and a bit of energy.
My own photography has grown to a place where all I want to do is photograph about environmental issues here in Australia. We have a completely abhorrent legacy of destruction, dispossession and extinction and these trends haven’t stopped or slowed, they’ve accelerated. When I take photos all I want to be doing is finding my own way to resist those things, draw attention, say ‘look at this! It’s fucked! Holy shit!’ – too many people in Australia have their head in the sand, or have engaged in a petty nihilism that serves to soothe but not to save.
Art is in the heart for me, if I have to think first instead of feel first I’d prefer to just read. That’s a bit dismissive but I’m just trying to be honest – cerebral, heady work suffocates my enjoyment of art. It’s like music, I want to feel like dancing, not be thinking about the song.
I do not accept that things are too far gone, I do not accept that there’s nothing I/we/society can do. I want my kids, or anyone’s kids, to be able to go for a walk and see a wild koala, platypus, snow gum, or some sort of reef. I am not done trying, in my own way, to say ‘do more, Australia’. Those things haven’t stopped firing me up, and I hope they never do. I don’t take many pictures, but when I do I want to be thriving with all the passion and history that I feel a part of. I think, more than anything, what’s contributed to my small successes as an artist is not the images (as I’m not a very technical, precise or knowledgeable photographer), but that I’m grinding and really engaged in all the background work: research, reading, Facebook community groups, emailing, calling, getting first hand information from helpful people, etc. I need all of that to go somewhat well to be in a place where things can be very open and serendipitous.

It’s funny, I’ve been contacted a few times to be commissioned for some work, and when I read the brief I just think ‘I can’t do that’. Taking colour photos? Probably not very well. Portraits? I have no experience with it. I really have no commercial skills at all, I can photograph trees, animals and issues the way that I look at them, that’s about it. But that’s about all I want to take pictures of right now, so I don’t mind so much.
Eds: How have you approached making sequencing & design choices with your collaborators, and how does it compare with doing so for your own projects? You tend to have a pretty strong idea of what you are and aren’t looking for when we talk together about inspiration, or about a given project you’re working on.
For me, design in broad parameters comes first. I like to look at someone’s work and think ‘what kind of book could this be?’
MD: For me, design in broad parameters comes first. I like to look at someone’s work and think ‘what kind of book could this be?’ I have a big folder on my computer with thousands of images of design that I like and I make almost a mood board of those sorts of design choices. Things like how big, the types of binding, the types of paper, I like to have these relatively firm in mind before even editing or sequencing. Of course they do change a bit, but I think the design ideas I have guide a lot of the later choices.
What’s essential for me is a tight edit. I absolutely cannot stand books that are too long. It’s the easiest mistake to make and it has just ruined so many books for me. I’ve written a bit about this in some reviews/commentary, and I think it’s completely overlooked by so many people making books – if your edit is too long, your sequence will drag and your reader will stop being attentive, interested or excited by the work. I don’t know if I always nail it, but that’s an aim.


Sequence is a bit of a tricky beast for me. I think a lot about spreads and pairing and start to nudge things together. I share this with the artists and we work on selecting pairings that look great and work together. Usually I find that a start/middle/end emerges really organically and intuitively, and this is a good spot to make a dummy and start looking at what the book looks like. For me, thinking about ‘when someone turns the page, what are they coming from? What are they going to?’ helps tremendously. I also think a lot about pace and pattern. It’s good to vary the pace of the work and it’s good, I think, to engage with patterns then break them. Books that are, for example, ALL full bleed or ALL single image spreads miss out on a chance to mess with their own structure which is an incredibly powerful way to use a book. Mockups are also crucial for me, they reveal all the successes and problems instantly.
I find the editing and sequencing of my own work somewhat challenging. I think that’s pretty common. … You know more than the photos will tell, but that’s not the point of it, the point of it is to make something really good, not transfer the most information.
I find the editing and sequencing of my own work somewhat challenging. I think that’s pretty common. Really this is because I’m bad at giving up on threads, directions and possibilities in the work. But you have to, don’t you? You know more than the photos will tell, but that’s not the point of it, the point of it is to make something really good, not transfer the most information. With The Killing Sink, when I was making my own dummies I kept thinking ‘how will people know that every landscape is a precise location where an Eagle was killed?’ but actually it’s more important to enable the work to be great, not stuff it full of every layer of context.
Eds: How would you compare your experience working with a larger publisher (Void) as a photographer yourself, with the kind of relationships and process you’ve developed as a startup yourself?
MD: Night and day different really due to size and distance. The rewarding part is seeing people with skills I don’t possess do something really amazing with my work. That is why I wanted to work with a publisher: to make a book I couldn’t on my own. At the same time, they are publishing lots of books, I am only one part of what they do and that has been hard for me to understand. The distance and differences between timelines in Australia and Europe has meant that the commercial side of the process has been tricky. Oddly, my experience with VOID actually made me think ‘I should try publishing’ so it’s been pretty enlightening from that front.


With Tall Poppy, when I work with artists I try to be one on one. Focusing, mainly, on just one project at a time. Consequently I think I have a very close relationship with the people I’ve published. Something worth mentioning is that Morganna Magee, whose book I published, has recently joined me as the other Tall Poppy Press operator. We enjoyed working together so much we just kept it going. This kind of flexibility and ability to just build those deep relationships is one of the best things about being my own startup publishing house.
It’s a bit unfair to think poorly of a larger publisher in this instance, where distance is a problem, as is location – collaborating or being as present in someone’s life when they are on the other side of the world (VOID are in Greece/Iceland, I’m in Australia) is pretty hard, and not a fair expectation. Still, that is a difference I’ve noticed and one of the reasons I want Tall Poppy to be very present in Australia. It’s good to be community-minded and supportive in these ways.
A large part of publishing is literally just maintaining a schedule and emailing people – I’m good at that, so it becomes a lot easier. However, I’m still working a lot of things out and partially I hope I never develop a process. We’ve talked about books that have come out and been too processed, stuck too close to a publishing house’s comfort zone and, in that repetition, lost some magic. I really like the idea of just messing with how I do things.


Eds: Are you now like a photoland kingpin of the Aussie scene, and can we or can we not have a piece of that?
MD: Photoland in Australia sort of exists, but also sort of doesn’t. There are some institutions (Contemporary Centre for Photography, Monash Art Gallery, some private galleries), but the blue chip, institutional options are incredibly limited and, in my view, exceptionally repetitive. In 2021, for example, the largest photography prize had a short list that was comprised of just the most staid work from some of the most ancient names. I decided then and there that I just didn’t care about the Australia ‘photoland’ scene’s accolades (though I like a lot of the folks in it, which might even include me these days). I understand that big prizes and institutions have to make choices that are informed by things more complex than ‘what would Matt like?’, but even still it was underwhelming.
Crucially, what’s underrated about Australia is how unexplored, photographically, it is. There are some places that are just so over-consumed by photography like Central Park, Tokyo or working class Britain. I can’t imagine being in those places and thinking ‘let’s make work here’, it feels examined from so many angles.
But, what Australia can and does have, being divorced from international art markets and opportunities, is a much more authentic and supportive community. I can go to Perimeter Books and chat to the team, a friend or fellow publisher can walk in the door, someone can tap me on the shoulder and say ‘hey, isn’t that a cool book?’. The film lab closest to me is staffed by excellent people, all who make great work. The art book fairs are busy, but not so crowded that you can’t say hello to your friends, or make new friends. The freedom here, which is amazing, is that there is no MOMA, TPG, ICP or Chico – we don’t have these, but when you take away those options you still have great artists, good people and a sense of ‘we’re in it together!’.
There’s a great group of independent, small-scale publishers. A handful of locally relevant and large-enough art festivals. Private galleries that are cool, public galleries that are (to me) often less so, but are still nice, as well as, regional spaces that often pay decent artist fees. It’s a good place to be an artist in a lot of ways.




Crucially, what’s underrated about Australia is how unexplored, photographically, it is. There are some places that are just so over-consumed by photography like Central Park, Tokyo or working class Britain. I can’t imagine being in those places and thinking ‘let’s make work here’, it feels examined from so many angles. Yet Australia has so many places people can’t even visualise in their heads, so many stories known locally and not explored. There’s space, material and time here. That’s a hard thing to get in other places, but it’s worth a lot, I think.
Eds: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from starting up your own imprint, that you’d give as advice to would-be publishers?
MD: The first lesson I’ve learned is that you should start by working out what your financial aims are. A lot of people have said that photobook publishing is a lean business and it can’t work financially, and if you’re looking to make it your day job that’s probably hard. But if your financial goals are more modest, say just to see a bit of money back on each book sold, then it becomes a much easier proposition.
I’d also share that I think the dourness and self-seriousness that exists in book making circles is just unnecessary. People ask ‘why should this be a book?’ and I certainly felt that question challenging: I remember thinking ‘maybe it shouldn’t, does anything ‘need’ to be in any form?’ I’ve come to a place in my art making and publishing where I’d rather be more playful and just see what we can do. Enjoy making it, remove some of those restrictive layers of commentary and be a little bit more free or playful with it all.
Matt Dunne
Void, 2022
Tall Poppy Press



