ASIA NOW artist talk | MIFA | Photo : Mayu Kanamori
Pia Johnson is a photographer and visual artist, whose practice emerged out of a concern with issues of cultural identity and difference, stemming from her mixed background of Chinese and Italian-Australian descent. These themes have underpinned her interest in memory, cultural spaces and performance – where she often features within her works – to investigate notions of transcultural identity, belonging and otherness through photography, moving image and installation.
Her work has been exhibited across Australia and internationally; and is collected in private and public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria. Pia has been a finalist in many photography awards, including the National Photographic Portrait Prize, Olive Cotton Award, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Award, Bowness Prize, Ravenswood Australian Womens’ Art Prize, Iris Award and Maggie Diaz Photographic Prize for Women amongst others. In 2023 Pia received the inaugural State Library of Victoria Kerri Hall Fellowship for Performing Arts and was the Artist in Residence at Immigration Museum, where she has a solo exhibition Re-Orient currently showing.
Known as one of Australia’s distinctive performance photography and portrait artists, Pia has commissions from all the major and small to medium performing arts organisations in Australia. Her photographs have appeared in The Age, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The Australian, The Saturday Paper, Australian Financial Review and The Huffington Post.
Pia holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual arts) and Diploma of Modern Languages (Mandarin) from the University of Melbourne and has a PhD (Fine Arts) from RMIT University. She is currently the Program Manager of the Master of Photography (course work) at RMIT University.
Pia has her own podcast Out of the Frame: Conversations about Photography, which profiles contemporary photographers and artists speaking about their practice and photographic concerns today.
Pia lives and works on Dja Dja Wurrung Country, with her husband and daughter. She acknowledges and pays respect to the traditional owners of the land - always will be Aboriginal land.
You can view her PhD exhibition here
Watch a video about Pia’s latest work ‘Re-Orient’ here
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Pia Johnson's work not only references feminism and transculturality, and from my point of view, a remarkable precision, in questioning the well worn assumptions of identity discourse and its sentimentality. Rather these works are, to me, elegant and acute reworkings of our observations towards heritage, and an opening out to multiple and heterogeneous possibilities of linkages where the dynamics of difference, becoming and resonance form our relation to our fore bearers, through the eyes, as if from the innocence of a child seeing the world anew.
... taken from John Young Zerunge's opening night speech from She that came before me (2018)
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Download full and short biography here
ARTISTIC RESUME (overview)
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2024 An Uncertain Grasp, Stockroom Kyneton VIC
2024 Re-Orient, Immigration Museum, Melbourne
2022 Faint Echoes, Bundoora Homestead, VIC
2021 I said goodbye to each room, as if saying goodbye to you, City of Yarra lightbox, VIC
2019 Cusp, Stockroom, Kyneton VIC
2018 She that came before me, Manningham Art Gallery, Melbourne
2016 The Widening Gyre, Stockroom, Kyneton
2014 In a dim light…, Edmund Pearce Gallery, Melbourne
2013 Fragile Light, Studio Kura, Itoshima, Japan
2013 Finding Yourself at Home Alone, Stockroom, Kyneton
2012 Who’s the Chinese lady that picks you up from school?, Queensland Centre of Photography
2009 threads, Photography, Guildford Lane Gallery, Melbourne
2009 Who’s the Chinese lady that picks you up from school?, fortyfive downstairs, Melbourne
Curated and Collaborative Exhibitions
2023 Peonies, Still Life and A Duck, (in collaboration with Janelle Low and Karima Baadilla), Counihan Gallery, VIC
Invisible winds, (co- curator and artist) CLIMARTE Gallery, VIC
2018 The Family Mantle (curator and artist), Bundoora Homestead, VIC
2017 Chinese Whispers and Other Stories (artist and curator), Huw Davies Gallery PhotoAccess Manuka
Arts Centre Canberra & Blindside Gallery Melbourne
Awards, Grants & Residencies
2024 Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, Ravenswood School for Girls, NSW (Finalist)
2023 Bowness Prize, Museum of Australian Photography, VIC (Finalist)
Artist in Residence, Immigration Museum, VIC
State Library of Victoria Kerri Hall Fellowship for Performing Arts Recipient, VIC
2022 Creative Victoria Arts Grant recipient
Northern Beaches Environmental Art and Design Award, Manly Art Gallery, NSW (Finalist)
Capturing Culture Photography Award, Victorian Multicultural Commission, Immigration Museum VIC (Finalist)
2021 State Library of Victoria ‘Alchemy’ grant with Melinda Hetzel & Co, VIC (Finalist)
2021 Olive Cotton Award, Tweed Regional Gallery, NSW (Finalist)
2021 National Photographic Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery, ACT (Finalist)
2021 Australia Council for the Arts Australia-Singapore digital residency grant recipient
2020 BLINDSIDE ARI and National Trust Vic regional art and research residency
2020 Regional Arts Victoria Sustaining Creative Workers Grant recipient
2019 Ravenswood Australian Women’s Prize, NSW (Finalist)
2019 Loud and Luminous ‘Power’ exhibition and book, HeadOn Festival, Sydney (Finalist)
2018 Punctum Inc ‘What if…’ Seedpod residency, Castlemaine VIC
2018 IRIS award, Photography Centre of Perth, WA (Finalist)
2018 Artist in Residence, National University of Singapore, College of Alice and Peter Tan
2017 Martin Kantor Portrait Prize, BIFB, Ballarat VIC (Finalist)
2017 Maggie Diaz Photography Prize for Women, Brightspace, VIC (Finalist)
2015 Maggie Diaz Photography Prize for Women, Brightspace, VIC (Finalist)
2014 Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, Gold Coast City Gallery, QLD (Finalist)
2014 RMIT University Arts Council Funding Grant recipient
2013 Punctum In-Habit International Grant recipient for Studio Kura Japan Residency
2013 Studio Kura Artist Residency, Itoshima, Japan
2012 Australian National Academy of Music Artist Residency
2012 Take A Bow performance prize exhibition, BIFB, Ballarat and Melbourne (3x Finalist)
2012 Onward Compe ’12 Exhibition, Project Basho Gallery, Philadelphia, USA (Finalist)
2010 Victorian Multicultural Commission grant recipient for Making it Sacred project
2008 City of Melbourne Young Artist Grant Program recipient
2006 Hannah Barry Memorial Prize for Merit, University of Melbourne
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Personal Structures, European Cultural Centre, Palazzo Mora, Venice Italy
Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, Ravenswood School for Girls, NSW (Finalist)
2023 Bowness Prize, Museum of Australian Photography, VIC (Finalist)
2022/2023 The Sitter: Portraits across the collection, Bendigo Art Gallery, VIC
2022 Forest: The Last Stand, CLIMARTE Gallery, VIC
2022 Here We Walk, with Melinda Hetzel & Co, Public art community project, City of Hume, VIC
2022 Northern Beaches Environmental Art and Design Award, Manly Art Gallery, VIC (Finalist)
2022 Capturing Culture Photography Award, Immigration Museum, VIC (Finalist)
2021/2022 10th Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, QLD
2021/2022 National Photographic Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery, ACT and National tour
2021 Olive Cotton Award, Tweed Regional Gallery of Art, NSW
2021 Say it With Flowers, Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Ballarat, VIC
2021 Im|mobilities Lives in Turbulent Times, Conference exhibition, Northumbria University, Online
2021 Every Artist Ever, Stockroom Kyneton VIC
2020 The Family Album, Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn VIC
2019/2020 On the move : The Dion Family, Wollongong Art Gallery, NSW (4A Centre of Contemporary
Asian Art and Wollongong Art Gallery commission)
2019 Her Focus, Footscray Community Arts Centre, VIC
2019 Ravenswood Australian Women’s Prize, NSW (Finalist)
2019 Loud and Luminous ‘Power’ exhibition and book, HeadOn Festival, Sydney (Finalist)
2018 IRIS award, Photography Centre of Perth, WA (Finalist)
2018 Territories, Pingyao International Photography Festival, China
2018 Poked by a bone in the Cupboard, Stockroom Kyneton, VIC
2018 All that we can't see, Yellow House Gallery, Sydney, & fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2017 The Confessional, Mailbox Art Space, Melbourne
2017 Martin Kantor Portrait Prize, BIFB, Ballarat VIC (Finalist)
2017 Maggie Diaz Photography Prize for Women, Brightspace, VIC (Finalist)
2017 Big Walk to Golden Mountain, Punctum Inc & AsiaTOPA, Ballarat Gallery and Castlemaine Festival VIC
2017 Closing the Distance, Bundoora House, VIC
2017 Mixed Tape, Stockroom Kyneton, VIC
2016 The Museum of International Connectivity, The Dirty Dozen Campbell Arcade, Melbourne CBD
2015 37° South to 19° North: Australian Photography, The Museum of the City of Cuernavaca, Mexico
2015 Maggie Diaz Photography Prize for Women, Brightspace, VIC (Finalist)
2014 Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, Gold Coast City Gallery, QLD (Finalist)
2014 Settlings, First Site Gallery, RMIT, Melbourne
2013 Camera Work: Contemporary Portraiture, Black Box Gallery, Portland Oregon USA
2013 Periscope, Castlemaine State Festival 2013, Castlemaine VIC
2013 蛇 rắn 뱀 Snake Snake Snake, Sydney Chinese New Year Festival, Sydney
2012 Make Yourself At Home, Chinalink Gallery, Sydney
2012 Mixed Media, Ausin Tang Gallery, Prahran VIC
2010 China Obscura, Melbourne International Fine Art (MiFA), Collins St, Melbourne
2010 Making it Sacred, Photography project with Sarah Anderson, CARBON BLACK gallery, Prahran VIC
2010 Asia Now, Melbourne International Fine Art (MiFA), Collins St, Melbourne
2010 Love, Loss and Intimacy, National Gallery of Victoria International, VIC
Collections
National Gallery of Victoria
Bendigo Art Gallery
City of Yarra
Curtin University
National Art School
RMIT University
University of Southern Queensland
Various private collections
Positions, Teaching and Talks
2022 - current Program Manager, Master of Photography, RMIT University
2020 - current Lecturer, RMIT University, School of Art (Photography, Print, Art History + Theory)
2016 - current Board Member, Punctum Inc
2019 Children’s arts workshop facilitator, Bundoora Homestead
2018 Guest lecturer, National University of Singapore
2017 Chinese Whispers and Other Stories, Public program and panel discussions, PhotoAccess and Blindside
2017 Masterclass Portrait Photography, Stockroom Kyneton
2017 Bundoora Homestead artist talk and children's workshop
2016 - 2019 Sessional Lecturer, RMIT University, School of Art
2016 Moving Image Cultures of Asian Art conference, ANU, Canberra
2016 Immigration Museum, Guest artist talk
2016 University of Melbourne, guest lecture
2016 University of Melbourne, Theatre forum panelist
2014 NGV Top Arts 20th Anniversary public program talks and panel discussions
2013 Kyushu University Guest lecture and workshop, Fukuoka, Japan
2013 Onward Compe Guest talk, Tokyo, Japan
2013 Australia Commercial and Media Photographers (ACMP) Trampoline session
2011 National Gallery of Victoria, Public Programs Art Start
2010 PechaKucha at Melbourne International Fine Art (MiFA)
2009 - 2016 Founding Board Member and President, Kesho Foundation Inc,
2007 - 2011 Inaugural Board member, Australian Poetry Centre (now known as Australian Poetry)
2005 Founding Co-editor, Above Water, Creative Writing Anthology, University of Melbourne
Education
2021 PhD (Fine Art), RMIT University, School of Art
2005 Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Arts)/Dipl. of Modern Languages (Mandarin), Uni. of Melbourne