Alumni spotlight

Our Koonung Secondary College alumni are making great things happen. Our alumni are bound by their connection to Koonung, but their journeys are all beautifully distinct.

On Wednesday 2 August, the YR10 cohort had the opportunity to hear from Koonung Alum, Wilhelm Philipp (Class of 2015), freelance Photographer, during yesterday’s Career Pathways session. 

MEET WILHELM PHILIPP (Class of 2015)

Currently…Afreelance Photographer. From shooting, to editing, printing and publishing, Wilhelm is a completely self-taught photographer with a love for storytelling.

About…Wilhelm Philipp has had a camera in his hands for the last 10 years. Throughout this time he has published a wide spectrum of bodies of work in both physical and digital form.

During his early years Philipp’s work revolved around the underground artists of Melbourne and Australia, working closely with up-and-coming brands and musicians looking to establish on a globally commercial scale. His work has always had a close connection with the local communities of Melbourne and the artists residing in them. The work he produced in his earlier days built up a strong portfolio that allowed for opportunities to work with globally recognised brands such as Adidas, Converse, Diesel, The Fader, Nike, Puma and Xlarge.

Philipp’s practice now focuses on detailed photojournalistic series highlighting stories of suburbia and the wider Melbourne area through Philipp’s imagery and words. These stories give insight into the often-overlooked subjects of the everyday, subjects of which he feels are underappreciated.

Since 2019, Philipp has been extensively documenting the wider Box Hill area in Melbourne’s East. With its rapid amount of investment and development in Box Hill is building it to become the first suburban city in Melbourne. With this huge change happening in front of his eyes Philipp has made it his mission to document the remaining heritage of its architecture, businesses, and civilians before it is all lost to the wrecking ball of investment as well as the construction and the rise of a newly formed city being built up into the clouds.  

Wilhelm has been awarded/offered a six-week exhibition at the Whitehorse Artspace in the Box Hill Town Hall for August/September of 2024, where he will be officially releasing the Box Hill book and series that he has been working on since 2019.

Outside of his dedicated time with his Box Hill series and documenting stories of suburbia, Philipp has worked towards publishing more refined bodies of work in a physical printed form. Since 2019 he has published a total of 7 different zines, all of which have sold out. This hunger and ability to produce well defined story telling series has opened the doorway for Philipp to represent and exhibit his work for highly regarded establishments.

In 2022 he was one of 6 Melbourne photographers to be featured in Chivas Regal’s ‘I Rise We Rise’ exhibition at No Vacancy Gallery, with two of his photographs being painted as a mural on Caledonian Lane in Melbourne’s CBD.

In 2021, he was selected as one of Melbourne’s brightest upcoming artists for Adidas Forum. For this campaign he produced a photo and interview series of underground hip-hop heavy weights Posseshhot, published the images and words in a zine that he also designed as well as a 3 minute video that he shot on Super 8mm film.

In 2023, his exhibition Forevermore was held at the Monash Civic Centre (23rd January 2023 - March 31st 2023) following its initial launch in the Atrium at The Monash Gallery of Art (18th November 2022 - 16th January 2023). Forevermore was photographed by Philipp and long-time collaborator Matthew Peter Karak of MPK Studio, a studio which Philip also helps to run.

In 2019 the pair released Nothing Without You, which was held at Brick-and-Mortar Supply (22nd March, 2019). This was the pair’s first major project together which was entirely shot by Philipp and curated by Peter Karak. 2023 has been a great start for Philipp he is set to give speeches/lectures at LCI University and to the council members of Monash at the Civic Centre in late February and early March. Philipp has also been shortlisted for the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Humanity award.

To contact Wilhelm…

·         Email: will.j.philipp@gmail.com

·         Web: https://wilhelm-philipp.format.com

·         Instagram: @wilhelmphilipp

About Koonung’s Alumni Program

Koonung’s alumni program is developed in partnership with Ourschool, www.ourschool.net.au, a not-for-profit service that helps government secondary schools build a thriving alumni network to benefit current students and the school community. For more information about Koonung Secondary College’s alumni program please visit here.

Get connected with the Koonung Alumni Program

Alumni Program Coordinator - Nancy Manders Email alumni@koonung.vic.edu.au

Alumni Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/KoonungSecondaryCollegeAlumni

Alumni LinkedIn Group - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14056625/

Connect on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/NancyKoonungAlumni/