Pia Johnson

Pia Johnson is a photographer and visual artist, teacher and curator, whose practice emerged out of  concern with issues of cultural identity and difference, stemming from her mixed background of  Chinese Italian-Australian descent. These themes have underpinned her interest in memory, cultural  spaces and performance, to investigate notions of transcultural identity, belonging and otherness through photography.  

Pia has been exhibited across Australia and internationally; and is collected in private and public  collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, European Cultural Centre (Italy), Bendigo Art  Gallery, City of Yarra and more. She 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, Galah Regional Photography  Prize 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 had a major solo exhibition Re-Orient in 2024. Pia has  been awarded a number of Australian and international residencies, including Studio Kura (Japan),  University of Singapore, Punctum Inc (VIC), Bogong Centre of Sound and Culture (VIC), and Bundanon  (NSW). 

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 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 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  Associate Dean Photography at School of Art RMIT University.  

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.