wani toaishara is a Congolese-born, Melbourne-based visual artist working across performance, video art, installation, and photography.
toaishara's practice is auto-ethnographic and collaborative, deeply informed by Black African and Diaspora cultural histories. Known for projects that foreground collective participation, site-responsiveness, relational memory, and materiality, his work exposes the revolutionary possibilities of performance, built through care and embodied action.
toaishara has been exhibited and performed at Arts Centre Melbourne, Sydney Opera House, Blak Dot Gallery and National Gallery of Victoria, and he has been awarded a Green Room Award, Arts House Evolution Award, and the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography award.
Selected Exhibitions
- Everyday Raptures and Repairs, Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery, Melbourne, 2026
- Through Our Eyes, BLAKDOT, Melbourne (curator), 2026
- REMNANTS: What Remains and What Flows, Wyndham Art Gallery (curator), 2026
- On Country: Photography from Australia, Immigration Museum, Melbourne, 2026
- On Country: Photography from Australia, Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France, 2025
- A Most Beautiful Experiment, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, 2025
- EXCHANGE, BLAKDOT Gallery, Melbourne, 2025
- We Are Eagles, TarraWarra Biennial, Victoria,2025
- This Spirit is No Citizen, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2024
- A Most Beautiful Experiment (PHOTO24), WESTSPACE, Melbourne, 2024
- The Uncanny and the Magnificent, Wyndham Art Gallery, Melbourne, 2022
Awards & Honours
– Bowness Photography Prize (Finalist), Melbourne 2024
– National Portrait Prize (Finalist), Canberra 2024
– Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, HOTA, Gold Coast 2022
– Darebin Art Prize (Winner), Wyndham Art Gallery 2021
– Wyndham Art Prize (LEAP Award), Wyndham Art Gallery 2020
– Wyndham Art Prize (winner), Wyndham Art Gallery 2019
– Greenroom Award (Visual/Performance) 2018