For many in the Australian arts scene, 7 February 2025 was a date to celebrate.
This was when Creative Australia announced that Western Sydney artist Khaled Sabsabi – an esteemed artist who some may describe as a quiet achiever – and Sydney curator Michael Dagostino would be Australia’s representatives at the 2026 Venice Biennale.
For many in the arts community, it felt like a great moment.
But now, after waves of controversy, this memory has slipped into the background – being overshadowed by a series of controversial events that have turned a blinding level of political and media attention on both Sabsabi and Dagostino.
The firestorm began on 11 February (four days after Creative Australia’s announcement) when The Australian newspaper’s business gossip column Margin Call included some pointed questions about the 2026 Venice Biennale choice in its briefing.
It framed the Venice Biennale artist selection panel’s choice of Sabsabi and Dagostino as a misstep, given both Sabsabi and Dagostino were (in the article’s words), “people who favour boycotts of Israel, one of them who seemingly lauded a terrorist leader in his past work”.
These allegations were based on the journalists’ discovery of two of Sabsabi’s previous works – namely You (2006) and Thank You Very Much (2007) – both of which feature politically sensitive imagery including the face of the then Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, which appears shrouded in light, and footage of the 9/11 terrorist attack planes hitting the Twin Towers.
Two days later (on 13 February) Liberal senator and Shadow Minister for Science and the Arts Claire Chandler used the same line of questioning to challenge Labor Senate leader Penny Wong in Federal Parliament’s question time, asking her (in Chandler’s words), “why the person who highlights a terrorist leader in his artwork”, was chosen to represent Australia on the international stage “with such appalling antisemitism in our country?”.
Hours later, a crisis meeting Creative Australia was called to allow its Board members to decide how to respond to Senator Chandler’s concerns.
In what Creative Australia described as a unanimous Board decision, later that night, it announced its Board was rescinding Sabsabi and Dagostino’s invitation to exhibit at Venice in 2026, in an unprecedented captain’s call that would soon be heard far and wide around the world.
In the following days and weeks, countless arts news media outlets (including international media) covered the story, highlighting the unusual process whereby a government arts funding body had stepped in to reverse a decision made by an expert independent selection panel, based on the funding agency’s view that “prolonged and divisive debate about the… outcome poses an unacceptable risk to public support for Australia’s artistic community“.
The backlash from Australia’s arts community has been equally seismic.
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Not only have there been a slew of resignations, but also disquiet expressed by Creative Australia staff, and numerous actions made by thousands of Australian artists and arts workers directing open criticism at Creative Australia’s leadership.
This (non-exhaustive) timeline provides context to these actions:
- 14 February: Creative Australia Board member and visual artist Lindy Lee resigned from the Board citing that she felt she “could not live the level of violation … against one of [her] core values” brought on by the Board’s decision, and that her experience of the Board’s crisis meeting held the previous night, was that it was a session in which “in no direction was there anywhere to breathe”.
- The same day, two senior Creative Australia staff members – Head of Visual Arts, Mikala Tai, and Program Manager of Visual Arts, Tahmina Maskinyar, resigned from Creative Australia in response to the Board’s decision.
- Also that week, arts philanthropist Simon Mordant, who served twice as the Australian Commissioner at the Venice Biennale, resigned from his position as a Biennale Ambassador, including withdrawing his philanthropic support.
- 14 February: an open letter to Creative Australia by the five other shortlisted artists and artist teams for the 2026 Venice Biennale was published, expressing their view that “revoking support for the current Australian artist and curator representatives … is antithetical to the goodwill and hard-fought artistic independence, freedom of speech and moral courage that is at the core of arts in Australia, which plays a crucial role in our thriving and democratic nation”.
- 14 February: an open letter by arts publication Memo was published, criticising the Venice Biennale decision and describing it as setting a “concerning precedent for artistic freedom and sectoral independence”. This letter calls out the Creative Australia Board for acting in what Memo’s editors believe is a contravention of its own Act, which stipulates that decisions be made in accordance with principles that “support artistic excellence, uphold freedom of expression [and] foster diversity in Australian arts practice”. This letter has over 4400 signatories.
- 14 February: Australia’s peak body for visual artists, National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) published a statement in support of Sabsabi and Dagostino, calling Creative Australia’s decision to rescind their invitation as an intervention that is “an outrageous overreach that threatens the very foundation of independent arts funding”.
- 14 February: an open letter by Hyphenated Projects – an artist-led network nurturing practice in Asian diasporas – was published, calling for Sabsabi and Dagostino to be reinstated while labelling the Board’s decision as undermining the independence of arts and cultural production in Australia.
- Days later, an open letter to Creative Australia by 23 previous Australian artist representatives at the Venice Biennale was published in The Sun Herald and The Sunday Age newspapers calling the decision to strip Sabsabi and Dagostino of the Venice Biennale opportunity “unacceptable”, based on action they say “signals a fundamental disregard for the role of artists in our society – especially by the very institution meant to defend them”.
- The same week, an open letter by national arts network for experimental and cross-disciplinary arts organisations, All Conference was published, urging Creative Australia to “acknowledge the damage this decision has caused to the arts community and take immediate steps to restore trust and reaffirm its commitment to independent, peer-led decision-making”.
- 17 February: AMaGA Victoria (Australian Museums and Galleries Association, Victoria) published a statement on the 2026 Venice Biennale decision, calling for Creative Australia to reverse the decision and “ensure expert independent selection processes are upheld and respected”.
- 20 February: 100 Creative Australia staff members gathered for a meeting with Creative Australia’s CEO where many staff raised their concerns about the Venice Biennale decision. As reported by The Guardian Australia, several staff challenged Creative Australia’s CEO and Board Chair over whether they should remain in leadership positions, only to be told both leaders believed their roles had not become untenable.
- 21 February: an open letter to Creative Australia and Board member Caroline Bowditch by Deaf and Disabled Australian artists was published, expressing the artists and arts workers’ “deep concern” regarding the Creative Australia Board’s decision, especially in relation to its undermining the principle of arm’s-length decision-making and its “opening the door to political interference in determining who is given a platform in the arts”. The letter has 93 signatories.
- 26 February: an open letter to Creative Australia from Australia’s writing and literary community was published, criticising Creative Australia Board’s “opacity and severity”, which its signatories say has “alarmed the entire arts sector, and by extension our wide-ranging audiences”, as well as “compromise[d] the integrity of Creative Australia”. It also describes the signatories’ view that the works by Sabsabi that are under scrutiny had been misrepresented, and Sabsabi’s rescindment “echoes increasing discrimination against Australian writers of Arabic, Muslim and West Asian heritage. It aligns with a long history of censure levelled against artists from other minority groups when creating work that interrogates power”. The letter has 617 signatories.
- 13 March: an open letter was sent to Federal Arts Minister Tony Burke by the Reinstate Khaled Collective, calling for an overview of Creative Australia’s governance process and a recommitment to arm’s-length decision-making, free of the political and bureaucratic interference and pressure that led to this rescindment. This letter attracted just over 1000 signatures.
- Last week, excerpts from a letter to Creative Australia’s CEO written by 40 Creative Australia staff was published in The Guardian Australia, citing these staff members’ belief there had been “deficiencies on leadership” at the organisation, including a “lack of transparency, ineffective decision-making and mismanagement of the [Sabsabi and Dagostino] situation”. The letter also cites these staff members’ “complete lack of confidence in [the current leadership’s] ability to lead this organisation effectively”.
While no statements have yet been issued by Australia’s major art galleries, museums or other major Australian arts institutions directly, it’s arguable that the evidence of the disquiet felt by thousands of individual Australian artists, writers and arts workers is representative of a sizeable portion of professional artists recorded as currently working in Australia.
As researchers David Throsby and Katya Petetskaya 2024 report ‘Artists as Workers‘ points out, as of 2023, there are approximately 8300 professional visual artists working in Australia, of an estimated total artist population (across all art forms) of just under 50,000.
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While statistical data of this kind is notoriously contingent on wide-ranging definitions and difficult categorisations, it is undeniable to observe the outpouring of dissent against the Creative Australia Board and its Venice Biennale decision as representative of a large percentage of our national visual arts community.
This opens the big question about how much longer it will take before these artists and arts workers see meaningful change to allow them to restore their faith in their national arts body.
With so much evidence of loss of faith currently on record, clearly it’s time for answers.
