About Australian Photographers
In 2005, Anne Marsh received an Australian Research Council Grant to undertake one of the most extensive research projects on contemporary photography within an Australian context. The outcomes of this project were twofold: a large format book and this website. Look: Australian Contemporary Photography since 1980 was published by Macmillan Art Publishing and released in December 2010. It is a collection of over 400 photographs with a series of critical essays written by Anne analysing key themes and issues. This website adds an additional dimension to the material selected for the book: it is an extensive database that displays the material that was collected from the artists who participated in this project. Artists were asked to select six photographs of their work and these are displayed under their entries along with a brief description about the work of the artist. All this material has been copy-edited according to guidelines developed during the project to maintain consistency. Publication material has also been gleaned from the artist or from additional research by the team with up to six publications listed for each artist.
This website is available here for researchers, students and the public to access key material that was discovered during this research project. This material, including photographs and texts, is drawn from a select period and thus attests to historical specificity and contexts within which this particular research project was undertaken. Much of the material about the artists’ works was collected from the artists and edited in 2006-2007 and acts as a form of historical snapshot of their creative practice at the time that the primary research was undertaken. To this end, no artist’s curriculum vitae are available through this website and nor are their current undertakings such as recent exhibitions. Where available, the artist’s URL should direct the visitor to this kind of current material.
The construction of this database and the design of the website was undertaken by Dylan Nichols of Superbia who worked with the research team over a lengthy period to develop an appropriate method of displaying this material to the public – a task challenged by the ongoing development in web publishing technologies and the advent of social media. The site really functions much like the book for which it is counterpart in that the material is quite static. We welcome your feedback which can be sent to the email on the contact page and hope this project and its developments will contribute to further online and digital accomplishments within academic scholarship, particularly in regard to the creative arts.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the research team: Melissa Miles, Leonie Cooper, Elena Gamiberti and Michelle Neal and to the Australian Research Council and the Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University.