Cherine Fahd
Cherine Fahd is a photographic artist, writer, and academic working on Gadigal and Wangal Country.
One of Australia’s leading photographic artists, Cherine Fahd has developed a diverse body of work over two decades that explores photography as a social and performative practice. Her work often involves collaboration with family, friends, and strangers, using portraiture and performance to stage intimate, humorous, and at times confronting encounters that reflect on identity, loss, visibility, and the rituals of daily life.
Her projects span photography, video, performance, and writing, with recent works exploring how the camera facilitates acts of touch, presence, and relationality in both public and private contexts. Recent major commissions include Being Together: Parramatta Yearbook (Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2022) and A Proxy for a Thousand Eyes (Sydney Opera House, 2020). Her work has also been commissioned by Carriageworks, Performance Space, and Monash Gallery of Art.
Fahd’s work has been exhibited widely in Australia and internationally, including at the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Victoria, Monash Gallery of Art, Haifa Museum of Art, Benaki Museum (Greece), Museum of Photographic Arts (San Diego), and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (Japan). Her solo exhibitions include Touching and Turning (Maitland Regional Gallery, 2023), Ecdysis (Carriageworks and Performance Space, 2021), Held (Monash Gallery of Art, 2021), and Apókryphos (Centre for Contemporary Photography, 2020). Recent group exhibitions include Cementa (2024), Know My Name (NGA, 2020), Civilization (NGV, 2020), On Vulnerability and Doubt (ACCA, 2019), and The National: New Australian Art (Carriageworks, 2019).
Her work is held in major public and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Victoria, Monash Gallery of Art, University of Queensland Art Museum, and Museum of Photographic Arts (San Diego).
Fahd is the author of three photobooks published by M.33 – A Portrait is a Puzzle (2017), Apókryphos (2019, winner of the Australia New Zealand Photobook Award), and A Story (2021). Her critical and creative writing appears in publications such as Sydney Review of Books, Photographies, Photography & Culture, Journal of Visual Art Practice, The Conversation, and ABC News.
She holds a PhD from Monash University and is currently Associate Professor of Visual Communication in the School of Design at the University of Technology Sydney.
In this interview, Fahd reflects on how ethics and consent have shaped her photographic practice, the challenges of navigating her career after becoming a parent, and the importance of using art, and the artist’s platform, to speak out and engage with urgent issues.
Video production by Atypical 2025.
Image: Cherine Fahd 2025, courtesy the artist.
ID: A photo of Cherine Fahd. She is smiling, wearing a blue shirt and is sitting at a table stacked with books in a workspace filled with photos, papers, and a computer. The walls behind her display photographs, artwork, and a newspaper clipping with the word “RESISTANCE”.
About NAVA
The National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) is a Membership organisation that brings together the many voices of the contemporary arts sector to improve fundamental conditions of work and practice. We do this through advocacy, education and the Code of Practice.
