Anne Ferran has been exhibiting since the 1980s. Her landmark series Scenes on the Death of Nature, presented at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, in 1987, established her as one of Australia’s leading photographic artists. In the mid 1990s she began working with the meagre residues of Australian colonial past, paying particular attention to the lives of women and children. Intellectually and emotionally engaging, her photographs have explored histories of incarceration in prisons, asylums, hospitals and nurseries. They play with invisibility and anonymity, and are often haunted by things unseen.

Select solo exhibitions: Birdlike, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2022; 1–38, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2020, White Against Red, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2018; Flying Colour, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2016; Shadow Land, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth and touring nationally, 2014-16; Box of Birds, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Body of water, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2013; Songbirds are Everywhere, Stills Gallery, Sydney, 2011; CANAL, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 2009; The ground, the air, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 2008; Spill, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2002.

Select group exhibitions: Namedropping, Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), Hobart, 2024; Photography and the Performative, Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney, Sydney, 2024; Australian Female Photographers, Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Horsham, VIC, 2024; Photography: Real and Imagined, National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne, 2023; Robert Wilson: Moving portraits, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2022; Return to Nature, Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh), Melbourne, 2022; XXX: Celebrating 30 Years of Sutton Gallery, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne 2022; Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now, National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Canberra, 2020; Fabrications, Wollongong Art Gallery, NSW, 2020; Inspiracje Festival, Szczecin, Poland, 2017; Versus Rodin: bodies across space and time, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2017; Emanations: the art of the camera less photograph, Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth, 2016; The Photograph and Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2015; Photography Meets Feminism: Australian women photographers 1970s–80s, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne, 2014; Mix Tape 1980s: Appropriation, Subculture, Critical Style, National Gallery of Victoria: Australia, Melbourne, 2013; Negotiating this world: Contemporary Australian Art, National Gallery of Victoria: Australia, Melbourne, 2012.