Each year, Sydney Contemporary announces its largest edition to date. This Spring, 116 exhibitors from Australia, New Zealand and beyond present more than 1000 new works by 500 contemporary artists. As the fair’s growing scale risks overwhelming even the most seasoned visitors, organisers continue to introduce ways to create points of focus. Amid the energy of Carriageworks, curated sections across key categories bring structure: Installation, Works on Paper, Emerging, and, most recently, Photography.

In 2025, the fair introduces the first edition of Photo Sydney, curated by Sandy Edwards, photographer and former director of Stills Gallery. This new sector responds directly to collector demand, says Sydney Contemporary Founder and Co-Owner Tim Etchells, noting that visitors have long been “asking to see a wider representation of photographic work.”

Edwards collaborated with a committee to select the galleries and artists, bringing together the State Library of NSW’s Margot Riley, Merilyn Fairskye, an artist and former board member of the Australian Centre for Photography, art historian Gael Newton and writer and curator Alasdair Foster.

For Edwards, range was essential: “I wanted all forms of photography to be represented,” she tells me. Together with the committee, works by artists across generations and genres were selected. Documentary, photojournalism, and art photography are included. The inclusion of documentary photography was particularly important for Edwards, as it represents “the foundation of photography and art photography, which blossomed in the 1980s.”

Edwards specialises in the medium, spending the first 15 years of her career behind the camera before a long tenure as gallerist at the now-closed Stills Gallery in Paddington. For Sydney Contemporary, she says, “I drew on my hard-won knowledge of the rich pool of photographers in Sydney and across Australia.”

Highlights of the curated presentation include Head On Photo Festival’s inclusion of William Yang with an oeuvre that captures decades of Sydney life and identity, alongside the much less candid and richly staged works of Samantha Everton. For OLSEN’s contribution, Alexia Sinclair presents a new photomontage series The Age of Wonder. “There are also some exquisite doubles in one stall”, notes Edwards, “Tina FiveAsh and Caterina Pacialeo, then John Gollings and John Marmaras both long experienced commercial photographers who are showing their personal work. Another double is Catherine Cloran and Zorica Purlija, both featuring different viewpoints of nature. Much anticipated is the presentation by Sandy Barnard, one of Sydney’s master printers, who unveils her own personal works.

The presentation from Canberra-based PhotoAccess brings together work by Odette England, Sammy Hawker, Nico Krijno, Phuong Nguyen Le, and Kai Wasikowski. “The artists were chosen for how they expand photography’s possibilities,” says Gabrielle Hall-Lomax, PhotoAccess curator. “From collage and digital techniques to working directly with natural processes. Seen together, their works reveal the medium as textured, experimental, and open to transformation.”

Beyond looking, what of collecting? On this, Edwards is pragmatic. “Ask questions,” she says. “Follow your instincts. Educate yourself. Photography has a long and rich history, it’s worth knowing where your interests sit inside that.”

She suggests beginning with emerging artists as the sector is full of them. Framing, paper stock, scale, and process should also form part of the conversations that happen in-situ.

Collector demand for more photography aligns with an age characterised by an insatiable hunger for images. As we lean in to examine a painted or drawn work shown elsewhere at the fair, the brushstrokes, pencil smudges, and texture of the surface offer something of the process, revealing traces of the artist’s hand. Photographic surfaces, however, give few clues about how the image was made; material decisions often lie behind the camera, with the artist.

At Photo Sydney, the chance to speak directly with artists and hear the stories behind the images will provide rare insight into their creative decisions.

“It’s a great playing field,” Edwards says. “This kind of intimacy with the work, and with its makers, is rare.”

Sydney Contemporary
Carriageworks
(Sydney/Eora NSW)
11—14 September 2025