Anna DAVIS

Profile

Born in 1974 in Australia, Sydney. Lives and works in Australia, Sydney. Graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Fine Arts, Media Arts from the University of New South Wales in 2009.

Anna Davis is a Sydney-based contemporary art curator and researcher. She is a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, where she has led and co-curated exhibitions including Data Dreams: Art and AI, Nicholas Mangan: A World Undone, Tarek Atoui: Waters Witness, Sun Xun, and New Romance: Art and the Posthuman. In 2022, Anna was one of five co-curators of rīvus, the 23rd Biennale of Sydney.

Recent exhibitions and activities
2025 “Data Dreams: Art and AI”, MCA Australia, Sydney 
2024 “Nicholas Mangan: A World Undone”, MCA Australia, Sydney
2023 “Tarek Atoui: Waters’ Witness”, MCA Australia, Sydney
2022 “Ultra Unreal”, MCA Australia, Sydney
2022 “rīvus: 23rd Biennale of Sydney”, multiple venues, Sydney 

Awards
2022 Japan Foundation, Exhibitions Abroad Support Program, Ultra Unreal, MCA Australia, Curator: Anna Davis
2015 DFAT, Australian Cultural Diplomacy Grant, New Romance: Art and the Posthuman, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Curators: Anna Davis (MCA) and Houngcheol Choi (MMCA)
2015 IMAGinE Award, Museums & Galleries of NSW, Major Exhibition Projects, Energies: Haines & Hinterding, MCA Australia, Curator: Anna Davis.

About curation

This curatorial research investigates how contemporary artists work with lively, sensing, and thinking entities to reimagine relationships between humans, materials, technologies, and environments. During the residency, I will focus on experimental artistic practices that activate everyday objects, machines, sound, and materials as dynamic systems shaped by invisible forces, improvisation, and collective agency. My research is grounded in long-term curatorial interest in more-than-human intelligence and expanded notions of authorship, particularly where art intersects with ecology, technology, and philosophy. Through studio visits, conversations, and institutional research in Japan, the project will trace connections between current practices and longer histories of experimental sound, media art, and robotics. Outcomes will inform future exhibitions, writing, and public programs that explore how contemporary art creates new frameworks for thinking, sensing, and living with nonhuman worlds.