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Installation View offers a significant new account of photography in Australia, told through its most important exhibitions and modes of collection and display. From colonial records to contemporary art, the book presents a chronology of rarely seen installation views from both well-known and forgotten exhibitions, along with a series of essays that tell the story of the individuals and institutions that have proved intrinsic to the public circulation of photographs. At once specific and widely contextual in its scope, this longterm research project from two of Australia’s leading academics and educators in the field enriches our understanding of the diversity of Australian photography by looking at what lies beyond the frame. Installation View speaks not only to pictures, but to the people and the places that nurture them.

Daniel Palmer is Professor and Associate Dean of Research and Innovation in the School of Art at RMIT University. His research and professional practice focuses on contemporary art and cultural theory, with a particular emphasis on photography and digital media. Prior to joining RMIT in 2018, Palmer was Associate Dean of Graduate Research and Associate Professor in the Art History & Theory Program at Monash Art, Design & Architecture. He also has a long association with the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne, first as a curator and later on the board of management. His book publications include Photography and Collaboration: From Conceptual Art to Crowdsourcing (Bloomsbury 2017); Digital Light (Open Humanities Press, 2015), edited with Sean Cubitt and Nathaniel Tkacz; The Culture of Photography in Public Space (Intellect 2015), edited with Anne Marsh and Melissa Miles; Twelve Australian Photo Artists (Piper Press, 2009), co-authored with Blair French; and Photogenic (Centre for Contemporary Photography, 2005). His scholarly writings, catalogue essays and reviews on photography and contemporary art have appeared in various journals, art magazines and publications internationally.

Martyn Jolly is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University School of Art and Design. With a background in photographic practice, as well as photographic history and theory, he has developed theoretical and practice-led research into the implications of digital media and its historical antecedents for society; the impacts of digital media on photography curating; Australian photobooks; early Australian multimedia of the post war decades; magic lantern technology in Australia and the world; and contemporary reenactment strategies. His most significant publications are the books Faces of the Living Dead: The Belief in Spirit Photography, published internationally by the British Library, Melbourne University Press and Mark Batty in 2006, and Empire Early Photography and Spectacle: The Global Career of Showman Daguerreotypist J. W. Newland (Routledge 2020), co-authored with Elisa deCourcy.

This project was supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects Funding Scheme.