Ali McCANN: Sex Acts and Warefare

2026 MAPh Photography Fair

Ali McCANN
born Australia 1977
Sex Acts and Warefare 2018
from the series Masks for Magicians
gelatin silver print
custom frame, unique to work
25.4 x 20.32 cm
collection of the artist
courtesy of the artist

Ali McCann (1977 - )

Ali McCann is an Australian artist and arts educator whose studio-based practice engages photography as both a material and pedagogical medium, exploring processes of learning, translation, and states of in-between within image-making. Guided by an interest in sentimentality, memory, attachment, and illusion, her work considers photography’s capacity to carry feeling, uncertainty, and belief.

Since the early 2000s, McCann has presented solo and group exhibitions across major Australian museums and contemporary art spaces, including the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), MAMA Murray Art Museum Albury, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Gertrude Contemporary, Neon Parc, Sarah Scout Presents, and correspondences. Her publication, An Introduction to Liminal Aesthetics, was published by Tempo Haus in 2023. McCann’s work is held in public and private collections in Australia and internationally.

She has been a finalist in a number of significant awards, including the National Photography Prize (2020, 2024), the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award (2022), the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, and the Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award (2019).

McCann holds a Master of Contemporary Art and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Photography) from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, as well as a Graduate Diploma of Education. Alongside her studio practice, she teaches photography at tertiary level, currently lecturing in the MADA program at Monash University and coordinating the Photography Program at NCAT, Melbourne.