Bowness Photography Prize - call for entries

The call for entries for the 2020 Bowness Photography Prize is now open. Marking its 15th year, the annual Prize is a survey of contemporary photographic practice in Australia. The prestigious prize, supported by the MGA, offers a $30,000 first prize, along with a $5,000 People’s Choice Award.

In light of COVID-19 restrictions and the impact on the sector, the MGA Foundation has made a number of alterations to the prize this year, including reducing the entry fee from $55 to $35, extending the entry open period, and working with its partner organisations to provide discounted rates for the production of works for exhibition. The announcement of the recipient of the prize will move to early 2021.

"At this unprecedented moment in our history, the Bowness Photography Prize takes on new meaning," Anouska Phizacklea, MGA Gallery Director said. "The MGA Foundation were unwavering in their commitment to the prize as a response to the impact COVID-19 is having on practicing artists, recognising the significant financial impact the awards would have on the recipients. The Bowness Photography Prize remains a celebration of photographic practice in Australia, and gives artists at any stage in their career the opportunity to get their work seen, not only by the judges, but also by audiences as they delve into the diversity of photographic practice."

Enter by clicking this link.

The judges

Fiona Hall is one of Australia’s most prominent contemporary artists. Hall is best known for extraordinary works that transform quotidian materials into vital organic forms with both historical and contemporary resonances. Hall works across a broad range of mediums including photography, painting, sculpture, moving image and installation, often employing forms of museological display. Hall’s sculptures are characterized by their intricate construction and thematic resonance with issues of environmentalism, globalization, war and conflict.

Shaune Lakin has been the National Gallery of Australia’s (NGA) Senior Curator of Photography since 2014. Previous positions include Gallery Director, Monash Gallery of Art (MGA), Senior Curator of Photography at the Australian War Memorial, where he wrote the first major history of Australian conflict photography, and Curator of International Art at NGA. He has been a lecturer in art history and theory at the University of Melbourne, where he completed his PhD in the history of photography. Lakin’s work is increasingly collaborative and has often focused on the histories of Australian feminist photography, including the MGA exhibitions Photography meets feminism: Australian women photographers 1970s‒80s (2014) and Sue Ford: time machine (2011). He has curated many projects with his colleague Anne O’Hehir, including The body electric (2020), California cool: art in Los Angeles 1960s‒1970s (2018) and Colour my world: hand-coloured photography in Australia (2015).

Anouska Phizacklea (BA (hons), MA, MCom, CPA, GAICD) is Director of Monash Gallery of Art (MGA). Phizacklea has expertise across the visual, decorative and literary arts as well finance and organisational development, with Masters Degrees in both Fine Arts and Commerce. She has held senior management positions at leading Victorian public institutions, Heide Museum of Modern Art and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), and worked for many years in art research and valuations in galleries and auction houses in Melbourne and London. Since her appointment at MGA Phizacklea has curated group and single artist exhibitions with leading Australian practitioners including Allusion & Illusion: the fantastical world of Valerie Sparks (2018) and Robyn Stacey: as still as life (2018) with an exploration of still-life photographs drawn from MGA’s collection, placing the genre and Robyn Stacey’s work into context. More recently she worked closely with the Tucker Foundation to realise the exhibition The Tucker portraits (2020) that delved into Albert Tucker’s use of photography in his art making and Portrait of Monash: the ties that bind (2020) featuring major commissions from Lee Grant, Peta Clancy, Ponch Hawkes and David Rosetzky.

Key dates

Entries close 8 July 2020
Finalists announced Thursday, 13 August 2020
Exhibition dates: 31 October 2020 – 7 February 2021

Previous Bowness Photography Prize winners

2019 Katrin Koenning
2018 Hoda Afshar
2017 Polixeni Papapetrou
2016 Valerie Sparks
2015 Joseph McGlennon
2014 Petrina Hicks
2013 Pat Brassington
2012 Jesse Marlow
2011 Jacky Redgate
2010 Lee Grant
2009 Paul Knight
2008 Nat Thomas & Concertina Inserra
2007 Ray Cook
2006 Kathy Mackey

History of the prize

In 2005 the MGA Foundation was established with the aim of supporting MGA and its significant collection. At the time the Board and the newly constituted Foundation recognised the importance of providing a platform for contemporary Australian photographers to showcase their work, which would simultaneously raise the profile of MGA and its unique commitment to photographic art. The following year the MGA Foundation launched the inaugural William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize to promote excellence in photography across all photographic media and stylistic genres by both established and emerging artists with work produced within the last year.

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