Kathy Hancock’s major donation to the Ballarat International Foto Biennale came at the most opportune time, says the Biennale’s creative director Fiona Sweet.
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Given the Biennale’s desire to find a permanent a home and the former Union Bank building coming onto the real estate market, her offer of a substantial gift made the initial purchase of the Lydiard Street premises a possibility.
Kathy had made a previous donation in memory of her late first husband Graham Hancock, a keen astronomer, providing funds to assist the restoration of the Great Melbourne Telescope, destroyed in the Mt Stromlo fires of 2003.
She says the feeling of having made a significant benefit to a community project made her not only feel good, but realise the good she might do.
When her partner Albert (Al) Ebenreuter died in October 2017, Kathy felt a fitting gesture would be to make a similar donation to one of his interests – one of his many interests, she says, including sound systems and wine.
“My partner was very interested in photography and the Biennale, which we supported since its inception in Daylesford,” Ms Hancock says.
“He was forever buying new bits for cameras, which I didn’t understand at all... Anything technical, which was the opposite to me. So in some ways we were a good team. Al was always taking photos, not the digital stuff, the ‘proper’ cameras.
“I thought it would be nice to give some money, and when I approached Fiona it was just when she was looking at this building, and so I was welcomed with open arms.”
She says she had considered founding an ongoing photographic prize, but when she saw the ‘fantastic’ location of the building, and the potential the inside offered for renovation into a contemporary arts venue, it was too inspiring to pass by.
“It is such a rabbit warren, but there are a lot of beautiful features that could be preserved,” she says of the former bank.
She and Fiona Sweet agreed the new darkroom facilities would be named in Al Ebenreuter’s honour. Some of his ashes will be incorporated into the construction of the new space, Kathy Hancock says.
She says she and Al followed the Biennale to Ballarat after it outgrew Daylesford, and Al became a supporter and friend of the photographic festival held every two years.
“We liked all sorts of art; we went to most of the exhibition openings around town, both Daylesford and Ballarat, lots of concerts.”
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