“The people in my photographs are those who have survived at all odds… the lonely man next door, the old people who have lived in the area all their lives and are threatened with eviction, the homeless man whose only dream is to have a room of his own”
– Viva Gibb
Butcher on Errol Street, North Melbourne, 1980.
From 1975 to the early 1990s, Viva Gibb (11 September 1945–4 December 2017) was living in the suburbs of west and north Melbourne, Australia. She took pictures of people in her area.
‘Lolly seller’ on Victoria Street, West Melbourne in 1985
The people in my photographs are those who have survived at all odds — socially, racially, and economically — in our essentially bourgeois society; the lonely man next door, the old people who have lived in the area all their lives and are threatened with eviction, the homeless man whose only dream is to have a room of his own’
– Viva Gibb
‘Not many of us left now’- Billy Flowers, 44 Hawke Street, West Melbourne, 1981.
In 1975, Gibb moved to 64 Capel Street, West Melbourne, with her two children, Sybil and Rupert. She established her first dedicated darkroom a few doors up at number 72 Capel Street and began to chronicle the people and streets around her. She worked mainly with a Rolleiflex twin-lens medium-format camera and a large-format 4×5-inch Graflex Speed Graphic press camera, developing and printing her own silver gelatin prints.
From 1980, she lived and worked at 10 Hawke Street, with her studio on Stanley Street sandwiched between a neighbour and what she described as the “bikie headquarters” at number 59.
Colin Cheng outside his home at 26 Capel Street, West Melbourne, 1980.
Centenary Bakery owner, 197 Victoria Street, West Melbourne, 1978.
“I don’t really deal with people I don’t know… I only ask them for a photograph if I am interested in that person, if there is something in the whole story about them… or some special feature, whether it is their beauty or their personality.”
– Viva Gibb
Frank the barber, Errol Street, North Melbourne, 1980.
Dorothy at George Joseph’s gun shop, 209 Victoria Street, West Melbourne, 1983.
Giuseppe Lanteri, or ‘The Boss’, at Don Camillo Cafe, 215 Victoria Street, West Melbourne, 1981.
Lillee feeding Pirate, Victoria Street, West Melbourne, 1982.
Jimmy at the wholesale flower shop, 217 Victoria Street, West Melbourne, 1977.
Willie, Hawke Street squat, West Melbourne, 1985.
Maureen at age 90, 8 Hawke Street, West Melbourne, 1987.
Maria Lanteri, or ‘Signora’, at Don Camillo Cafe, 215 Victoria Street, West Melbourne, 1980.
Man outside 18 Capel Street, West Melbourne, some time between 1975 and 1980.
Man at Jack Rozen’s barber shop, 9 Errol Street, North Melbourne, 1983.
Lindsay Williams, Hawke Street, West Melbourne, 1985.
Her pictures of the streets where she lived are on display at the City Gallery.