Juno Gemes

Photographer and social justice activist Juno Gemes has spent much of her long career documenting the lives and struggles of First Nations people. Born in Budapest, Gemes moved to Australia with her family in 1949. She held her first solo exhibition, We Wait No More, in 1982; the same year she exhibited photographs in the group shows After the Tent Embassy and Apmira: Artists for Aboriginal Land Rights.

In 2003 the National Portrait Gallery exhibited her portraits of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander reconciliation activists and personalities, Proof: Portraits from the Movement 1978–2003, and has since acquired many of her photographs. Gemes was one of ten photographers invited to document that National Apology in Canberra in 2008. The Macquarie University Art Gallery held a survey exhibition of her work, The Quiet Activist: Juno Gemes, in 2019.