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About
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Virginia Were
Virginia Were is a lens-based artist who combines poetic texts and photographic images to explore human–nonhuman relationships in the Anthropocene. Virginia graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts in 2023 with a DocFA. In March 2024 her photobook An Intimacy of Long Unfolding won the student category of the Australia & New Zealand Photo Book Awards. Her photograph An Abominable Mystery was a finalist in the 2022 National Contemporary Art Award at Waikato Museum of Art. In 2015 she won Second Runner-Up in the Wallace Art Awards, and in 2019 her work was included in the group exhibition Cross the River at NORTHART gallery. Virginia was Editor of the contemporary art magazine Art News New Zealand for 17 years, and then taught for several years at Elam School of Fine Arts. In 2023 she taught the course ‘The Global History of Photography’ at the University of Auckland. Virginia is an award-winning author of poetry and short fiction and her writing appears in many New Zealand literary journals and anthologies. Her two books of poetry are published by Te Herenga Waka University Press.