The annual AAANZ conference takes place in either Australia or New Zealand. The conference brings together scholars from Australia, New Zealand, and further afield. The conference attracts around 500 delegates for a two-to-three day program, which typically includes over 150 papers, keynote lectures, graduate masterclasses, networking, round-tables on publishing, funding and other events. The annual conference is an important event for scholars working within the art history, art theory, curatorship, art education and arts practice. Each year the program features range of speakers from students to established, senior academics. Our aim is to support research in the arts and to draw together the diverse range of people working in universities, museums, libraries and independently.
The venue changes each year and each host venue engages with the local arts and educational groups. By holding the conference in a different major city every year the Association maintains a visible and active presence across the region. Through this geographical spread the Association develops key relationships with a large number of art museums, galleries and educational organisations broadening our scope with each new stakeholder we work with.
AAANZ works in partnership with the organising committee in the host city and each year our conference encourages collaboration between universities and the gallery sector.
The 2023 conference will be hosted by Griffith University at their Southport Campus on the Gold Coast from Wednesday 6 to Friday 8 December. This will be the first in-person conference since 2019.
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Past Conferences
Our online archive of past conferences includes information about keynotes and you can download past session and paper abstracts.
2022: DEMONSTRATIONS | Melbourne
2021: IMPACT | Sydney
2020: Postponed due to COVID-19
2019: Ngā Tūtaki – Encounters, Embodiment, Agency, Exchange, Ecologies, Auckland
2018: Aesthetics, Politics and Histories: The Social Context of Art | Melbourne
2017: Art and its Directions | Perth
2016: The Work of Art | Canberra
2015: Image, Space, Body | Brisbane
2014: GEOcritical | Tasmania
2013: Inter-discipline | Melbourne
2012: Together<>Apart | Sydney
2011: Contact | Wellington
2010: Tradition and Transformation | Adelaide
2009: Open Theme | Canberra
2008: AAANZ: Alpha Alpha Alpha November Zulu | Brisbane
2007: Art and the Real: Documentary, Ethnography, Enactment | Sydney
2006: Reinventing the Medium | Melbourne
2005: Transforming Aesthetics | Sydney
2004: Present pasts – present futures | Auckland
2003: AAANZ Conference | Canberra
2003: Ethics and Aesthetics | Sydney