Wai Tang Commissioning Award 2025
The MAPh Foundation and MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea are delighted to announce the recipient of the Wai Tang Commissioning Award, selected from the finalists of the 2025 Bowness Photography Prize: Sarah Rhodes, for her work ‘Chamber of projection I’ (2025).
The Wai Tang Commission invites the selected artist to exhibit a body of work alongside the following year’s Bowness Photography Prize exhibition, and awards the artist $10,000. One work from the commission will be acquired into MAPh’s collection.
On her selection, Sarah Rhodes says, ‘Being awarded the Wai Tang Commission is a dream come true. It’s an extraordinary opportunity to develop an exhibition at the Museum of Australian Photography, one of Australia’s most significant homes for contemporary photography. This recognition encourages me to experiment both technically and conceptually in my practice.
‘My work explores how photography might reveal what is not immediately visible – the emotional, psychological and atmospheric traces that sit between people and place. By pushing the material limits of analogue processes, I explore how our inner worlds are shaped through our relationship with the natural world, and how an image can hold that dialogue.’
MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea reflects, ‘The intent of the Wai Tang Commissioning award hinges on potentiality and exploration – providing a photographer with the opportunity, freedom and space to create a new body of work that could go anywhere and delve into any subject matter or thematic. What is exciting about curating an exhibition of work by Rhodes is the experimental nature of her practice that taps deep into the human psyche.’
Rhodes's practice signals a thoughtful and compelling exhibition to come, from one of Australia’s most experimental and conscientious photographic artists. We are excited to see what the exhibition brings and to share it with you in 2026.
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Sarah RHODES
Chamber of projection I 2025
from the series Intimate immensity (after Bachelard)
gelatin silver print
125.0 x 100.0 cm
courtesy of the artist