Judges

Abdul-Rahman Abdullah

Visual Artist, WA

Abdul-Rahman Abdullah is an artist living and working on Bindjareb Nyungar country, in the Peel region of Western Australia. His practice explores the intersections of identity, culture and nature. Working primarily in sculpture and installation, his work has been described as magic realism, creating poetic interventions with the space it occupies. While his own experiences as a Muslim Australian of mixed ethnicity provide a starting point, Abdul-Rahman foregrounds shared understandings of individual identity and new mythologies in an intercultural context. Living and working in rural Western Australia, he provides an alternative perspective across intersecting and often disparate communities. Abdul-Rahman’s works have been included in The National 2019 and Adelaide Biennial 2016 and 2022, and his work was celebrated in the major solo exhibition Everything is true for Perth Festival at John Curtin Gallery in 2021. He has held board positions at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art and the National Gallery of Australia. He has held two-person exhibitions with his wife Anna Louise Richardson (a former Mandorla finalist) at Goolugatup Healthcote and Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre. Abdul-Rahman has participated in arts advocacy, particularly focused on diversity, media engagements, judging and assessment panels and public forums on contemporary art in Australia. 


Photo by Bo Wong 

Anna Davis

Curator, NSW

Anna Davis is Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, where she is instrumental in developing the exhibition program, commissions and Collection. With over 20 years’ experience as a curator, she is known for compelling experimental projects that extend beyond the museum walls. Her research focuses on evolving relationships between art, living systems and nonhuman intelligence. Anna has led and co-curated numerous monographic and thematic exhibitions, including Data Dreams: Contemporary Art and AI (forthcoming, 2025), Nicholas Mangan: A World Undone (2024), Tarek Atoui: Waters’ Witness (2023), Ultra Unreal (2022), Jenny Watson: The Fabric of Fantasy (2017), New Romance: Art and the Posthuman (2015/16) and the award-winning Energies: Haines & Hinterding (2015). In 2022, she was one of five co-curators of the 23rd Biennale of Sydney: rīvus, and in 2015, co-directed the transdisciplinary research initiative Energies in the Arts, developed in collaboration with the University of New South Wales. Anna has published widely on contemporary art. She has co-edited and authored monographs on Nicholas Mangan, Jenny Watson, Sun Xun, David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, Louise Hearman, and Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro. She holds a PhD in Media Arts and a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours. 

Photo by Anna Kucera

Dr Glenn Morrison

Theologian, WA

Dr Glenn Morrison is a theologian, writer and Associate Professor, lecturing in systematic and pastoral theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle. He completed his PhD in Systematic Theology and Continental Thought at Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, where he has lectured. He also holds a Bachelor of Economics from Macquarie University, a Bachelor of Theology with honours first class in Philosophy and a Masters in Theology from Yarra Theological Union (University of Divinity), Melbourne. Dr Morrison’s research interests include theology and phenomenology, the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, interfaith relations, ecclesiology, spirituality, pastoral theology and Catholic universities. He is the author of A Theology of Alterity: Levinas, von Balthasar and Trinitarian Praxis (Duquesne University Press, 2013) and editor of Continental Philosophy and Christian Beliefs  (MDPI Books, 2024). He has published in journals such as Religions, The Furrow, The Heythrop Journal, Irish Theological Quarterly, the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Australasian Catholic Record, Pastoral Liturgy and the Australian eJournal of Theology. He presented on the 2025 Mandorla Artists’ Forum Panel and provided a written commentary for Mandorla’s 2026 theme ‘What is truth?’.