Artshub last caught up with Rhana Devenport when she was just five days into the job as Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) – the first woman to hold the position in the Gallery’s 137-year history.
Seventeen months on since her appointment in July 2018 (starting in October) the state had a change of government, delivered a budget that had a drastic impact across the arts, embarked on a state cultural review led by Tony Grybowski and Graeme Gherashe (published July 2019), and there was a PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) scoping study into an Aboriginal culture centre (published Nov 2019). The state has also changed the name of the “Lot 14 Project” four times, from Adelaide Contemporary – a project that had architects in place and a vision to grow the gallery’s footprint – to most recently, the Aboriginal Arts and Culture Centre, dropping the word “gallery” entirely and pushing back the delivery date to 2023 – aka after the next election.
