By Jim Kellam
I am a local photographer and graphic designer. Since I moved west from the inner south east some years ago, Toni the Barber (aka Toni Gedjo) on Footscray’s Barkly St has been trimming the alarmingly decreasing locks of my hair.
Between haircuts our conversations often turn to photography as Toni himself is a talented street photographer with exhibitions to his name.
In May 2025, just before he headed overseas to host an exhibition in his home town of Prilep in Macedonia, Toni shared a spark of an idea with me:
“What if one wall of the barber shop became an ever-changing exhibition space for local photographers and artists?”
Toni had always covered the wall with his own photos for years but decided that it would be a great community initiative to replace his images with art from other local artists.
I loved the idea, but suggested taking it further – let’s host opening nights for each new show, create a website and posters for promotion, invite local businesses to sponsor the openings (Moondog Wild West have already stepped up) and ask our mutual friend and local arts powerhouse LaDY MoHaWK (Sally Walshe) to contribute both her art work and her expertise in local community arts projects.
So the Footscray Photo & Art Exhibition was conceived.
As Toni’s barber shop is a small space with only one wall to dedicate to art works we decided to limit each exhibition to five or six local artists each contributing three pieces – a total of 15-18 artworks for each exhibition with the largest size of A3 per piece.
Because we are all artists we are making up half the exhibitors for the first exhibition, and Toni has several photographer friends who were keen to show their work – so the six exhibitors for the initial exhibition starting in November 2025 have been decided.
Going forward the FPA Exhibition will encourage submissions from any interested local photographers or artists via a forthcoming expression of interest (EOI) page on the FPA website. – fpaexhibition.com
The opening night is on Friday 7th November from 6.00-9.00pm but the initial exhibition will run for three months until early February 2026 when we hope to have the second exhibition confirmed.
Toni, Sally, and I hope to get through four exhibitions over the next 12 months and will assess how things are going from there.
People can pop in to view the artwork on display anytime that Toni is open for business and most of the artwork will be available for purchase.
For any artwork that is sold, all the money goes to the artist – we are not charging a commission on any sales.
We hope to see you at Toni’s barber shop at some stage on the evening of the 7th , or in the months following, to view the work of some talented inner west artists.
