The Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh), formerly Waverley City Gallery and Monash Gallery of Art (MGA), is an art museum and gallery in Wheelers Hill, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.
History The museum began as the Waverley City Gallery in the late 1970s, housed in a residential home in Mount Waverley. Run by the City of Waverley, the collection had a broad focus, displaying both Australian and International art, including paintings, photographs, prints, and textiles.
In 1990 a new gallery building, designed by Harry Seidler, was opened on the current site on Jells Road, Wheelers Hill. When the councils of the City of Oakleigh and the City of Waverley were amalgamated to form the City of Monash in 1994, the gallery was renamed the Monash Gallery of Art (MGA).
It was renamed from Monash Gallery of Art in 2023 to Museum of Australian Photography (MapH) in a bid to better reflect the organisation's extensive photography collection, and increase community reach and engagement.
Description The Museum of Australian Photography adjoins the Wheelers Hill Library on Jells Road, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne. The gallery and museum is dedicated to the collection, conservation, and exhibition of Australian photography.
Collection MAPh houses over 4,500 Australian photographs in their collection, many of which are available to access online via their website. The photographs reflect the history and development of Australian photographic practice from the 19th century to today. The collection is diverse and includes many iconic images and the work of photographers recognised as nationally significant.
Exhibitions Speak the Wind, an exhibition of photographs by Hoda Afshar, took place from 29 April to 22 May 2022, as one of a series of official exhibitions of PHOTO 2022: International Festival of Photography, taking place in Melbourne and regional Victoria. Afshar published a book of the same name in 2021, which includes an essay by Michael Taussig and documents the landscapes and people of the islands of Hormuz, Qeshm, and Hengam, in the Persian Gulf off the south coast of Iran.
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