Neil Pardington

Neil Pardington

Neil Pardington - Aotearoa Photobook Awards judge

Neil Pardington is an artist and designer based in Wellington. One of New Zealand’s most established and widely exhibited contemporary photographers, his series The Clinic, The Vault, and The Order of Things document the operating and storage areas within hospitals and museums. These critically acclaimed works take into account the history and practices of medicine and of collecting. 

Founding director of Eyework Design (1989–2004), Creative Director at Base Two (2005–2016), Neil is now Creative Director of Neil Pardington Design. A focus of his career has been his work in the arts sector where he has designed many projects including photographic books. 

 He is of Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Ngāti Kahungunu and Pākehā descent, and is a graduate of Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. Neil is the recipient of numerous national awards for design, the 2011 recipient of the Marti Friedlander Photographic Award and a founding trustee of the Paemanu Ngāi Tahu Contemporary Visual Arts Trust. 


claire mabey

claire mabey

Claire Mabey - Aotearoa Photobook Awards judge

Claire Mabey is founder of Verb Wellington which is an organisation dedicated to supporting Aotearoa writers and readers. She is also curator for the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts' writers programme 2022.


Athol McCredie

Athol McCredie

Athol McCredie - Aotearoa Photobook Awards judge

Athol McCredie’s career includes roles as a photography exhibition curator, graphic designer, researcher and author. He joined Te Papa as an art and visual culture curator in 2001 and in 2006 became Curator of Photography. He is an author of several photography publications including:

  • Witness to change (co-authored with Janet Bayly, PhotoForum, 1985)

  • Fields of golden daffodils (National Library of New Zealand, 1991)

  • Brian Brake: Lens on the world (Te Papa Press, 2010)

  • New Zealand photography collected (Te Papa Press, 2015)

  • editor of Ten x Ten: Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2017)

  • The new photography (Te Papa Press, 2019)

He is currently working on a book of photographs by Leslie Adkin.