President’s Report – Art Association of Australia New Zealand – 2015
This is my first report as President of the AAANZ and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the outgoing president Ann Stephen and her executive who left the Association in such robust health earlier this year. During her term, The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art came to be published in partnership with Taylor and Francis and the Power Institute, an arrangement which has been in place for almost 2 years. This has created a level of visibility for the Journal which is unprecedented and raises the profile both of our scholarship and our Association more broadly.
Another important legacy of Stephen’s presidency has been forward planning regarding conferences. In 2014 commitments were made to host the conferences up until 2020. Next year 2016 it will be held in Canberra; in 2017 it will be held in Adelaide or Perth; in 2018 it will be held in Sydney; in 2019 it is planned to be held in New Zealand at a city to be confirmed; and finally in 2020 it travels to Melbourne. I look forward to working with the team in Canberra including the conference for next year which will be held from the 1st to the 3rd of December and will be hosted by the Centre for Art History and Art Theory at the Australian National University School of Art in partnership with national cultural institutions. This partnership reflects an important policy of organising the conference in collaboration with other institutions and events, of which this year’s wonderful Brisbane conference held in collaboration with the Asia Pacific Triennial is a perfect example.
The publication prizes run by the Association have expanded to 10 categories in recent years and I am pleased to announce that this year we have succeeded in awarding an artist’s book prize and an indigenous art writing prize, the latter partly sponsored by Art Monthly. The only problem this year has been the low number of entries to the new Maori or Pacific Islander art writing prize which meant that the prize had to be held over for a year.
The Association remains in good shape with a healthy bank balance, as the Treasurer’s report demonstrates. We have currently 179 members, and the balance sheet at the end of financial year was well in surplus. However there appears to be a decline in income from membership and journal subscriptions which is something that needs to be addressed. I would like to support our Treasurer Grace McQuilten’s recommendation that we put more energy into marketing the organisation next year, and am proposing to change the management of memberships so that all conference attendees become a member and all memberships fall due in November.
The Victorian-based executive is organising a survey about how we can better serve our membership base. We will be asking questions about what forms of communication are best, and how the Association can serve as an advocate on issues affecting the discipline. In order to respond to challenges such as the proposed cuts to the Australia Council funding, it is important to have a strategy in place so that the membership can speak with one voice.
The Association made an expression of interest application for six-year organisation funding from the Australia Council earlier this year. This funding scheme was suspended due to the changing Australia Council funding, and was then reinstituted as a four-year organisation funding scheme. In the meantime, we received feedback that our expression of interest application had been ranked very low, and that the organisation funding scheme would have a very low success rate in future. In light of these facts, we decided not to proceed to the full application in the view that our resources would be better spent elsewhere. In future we may choose to apply for the Australia Council’s project funding schemes.
I would like to thank those who have worked on various aspects of the Association’s activities, including Giles Fielke, our Business Manager, Grace McQuilten, our Treasurer, and Katrina Grant our Victorian Representative. I would also like to thank our executive committee members who provided counsel at various times and wrote state reports for the newsletter. Thanks are also due to the wonderful team in Sydney who edit the journal, the conference committee in Brisbane and its wonderful team of volunteers. Other individuals who have given their time to the Association’s activities include the referees for the journal articles, and the prize judges who have worked so hard. I would also like to acknowledge the various institutions which support the wonderful publication prizes.
— Anthony White, November 2015