Candid photos from my current series on Melbourne Rave Culture. Through these photographs, I seek to provide a record of the people and emotions of the Melbourne Rave Landscape and adjacent subcultures. These images were captured on a variety of film cameras starting in 2024.
My connection with raving is quite recent, I started attending events in mid 2024 and fell into a wonderful group of organisers going by ForThePeople. I helped out with setup and organising, gaining crucial insight into how the community operated and how these events came to be. I realised that Melbourne had something truly special.
These events are not just dance parties or environments for people to consume substances, they are a transformative space, an escape, an act of protest and a way to connect and share art. As an escape, ravers offer refuge from difficult homelives, gruelling jobs or the general stresses of life. By acting outside the legal landscapes, attendees have more freedom to act how they wish without the pressure of conforming or the monetary stress that comes along with legal nightlife.
Melbourne's rave community is tight knit, friendship groups are large, loose and ever changing, often it can feel like everyone knows each other. For many attendees, this community offers them a safe space to feel appreciated and connected, to feel seen and valued.
My intention is to capture these moments of humanity, to offer an insight into an unseen community and create a record of the people and events of this subculture as it is now. Raving is a Melbourne tradition, underground events have been going on for decades and show no signs of stopping, but every generation is distinct from the last and I hope to entrench this generation's ravers in the history of the city.
