National Photography Prize: Meet the selection panel

Amanda Williams lives and works in Sydney. She received her MFA from Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney (2015). She holds a BFA (Honours class 1 with the university medal) from the University of NSW Art & Design (2006) and a BA in Art History and Theory from the University of Sydney (1998). Her recent photographic work operates as a direct response to the history of photography and the natural and built environment, exposing present and past historical contexts of a chosen site. Williams was the winner of the 2018 National Photography Prize for her series Cooleman Plain Karst, Kosciuszko National Park, (know who you are at every age), 2017-2018. Key group exhibitions include Peace Altitude – Nabilah Nordin, Salote Tawale, Amanda Williams, at The Commercial, Sydney (2019); Antipodean emanations: cameraless photographs from Australia and New Zealand, curated by Stella Loftus-Hills, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne (2018); An elegy to Apertures, curated by Isobel Parker Philip, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2017); Silver & Salt – Experimental Photography, curated by Carrie Kibbler, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Sydney (2016). Williams is represented by The Commercial gallery in Sydney.

Isobel Parker Philip is Curator of Photographs at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Recent shows include Imprint: Photography and the Impressionable Image (2016), New Matter: Recent Forms of Photography (2016–17), and Hold Still: The Photographic Performance (2018). In 2017 Isobel was the coordinating curator of Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium and is AGNSW’s representative curator for the 2019 edition of The National: New Australian Art.

Michael Moran is the Curator of Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA). He has over fifteen years’ experience within the cultural sector, both within Australia and internationally, striving to advance innovative and challenging contemporary arts practice. Recent projects include large-scale commissions by Australian artists Sarah Goffman, Nick Dorey and Lorraine Connelly-Northey, as well as the survey exhibitions Immortality: artefacts for the future and Certain realities. Previously, Moran held the senior management position of Exhibitions Manager at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF), in addition to prior roles at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and White Cube, London. Between 2005 and 2007, he was a Director of the artist run initiative, Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney.