2025 was my first year taking on the role as President for AAANZ, although I have been on the executive for many years there was still a lot to learn! My thanks to outgoing president Wendy Garden, and our ongoing Business Manager Rebecca Renshaw who both helped enormously with the transition.
Our major project for 2025 was working through our registration as a charitable organisation so we could have Deductible Gift Recipient status. Wendy Garden had formally started this process in 2024, and there was a lot of work happening behind the scenes during 2025. Thanks to all members who came along to several special General Meetings to assist with changing the constitution to meet our new requirements. Thanks to Sam Beard our Treasurer and Rebecca who worked to organise our administration and finances to align with new requirements.
We were finally awarded this status in October 2025, it comes with new responsibilities (so expect to see some changes to our systems and processes over the next year) but more importantly offers new possibilities for raising funds to support our activities. We will be able to accept donations and be eligible to apply for grants.
Areas that would benefit from more support include:
- Increase the numbers of bursaries and complimentary registrations we can offer to students, ECRs and precariously employed researchers and artists to attend the conference.
- Expand our budget for operations and paid roles, our business manager role still only has 6 hours paid time per week, and the journal has around $10-15 000 per year to support paid editorial support and marketing. For the casual and part time staff who support the day-to-day operations of AAANZ we need to be able to offer fair remuneration.
- We can also consider new activities, such as events, support for research activities, and for publishing. If you have ideas for grants, activities, or fundraising please get in touch!
AWAPAs
We have another strong set of entries for the AWAPAs, with over 80 entries for the awards (not including the articles considered from ANZJA). There was strong representation across all categories. It is always encouraging to see the range of high quality writing and publishing coming out of our region, with researchers, artists, curators and critics covering art, history and exhibitions locally and internationally. My congratulations to this year’s winners and highly commended, and thanks to our judges who have dedicated time to reading and discussing the entries. Thank you to our sponsors for the awards: the Australian Institute of Art History, Power Institute, Prof Terry Smith, Christchurch Art Gallery, Monash Art Design and Architecture, The University of Melbourne, the University Art Museums Association and particularly to Fiona Foley who has established a new prize for 2025, Nur: Best Critical Art Writing by an Indigenous Australian. The winners and highly commended with judges’ comments will be available to view on the website this week and will also be circulated via the weekly newsletter.
AIAH-AAANZ ECRAS
With the support of the Australian Institute of Art History we have awarded two Early Career Researcher Awards for 2025. These grants of up to $10000 will support groups of researchers to establish a serious research project, with plans to develop books and establish a basis for further research funding. We all know how challenging it can be to get new research projects off the ground post-PhD, especially when so little of the ARC funding is directed towards the humanities, so thanks to Professor Anne Dunlop and the AIAH for supporting this ongoing initiative. Congratulations to the two teams (five researchers) who won this year, we look forward to hearing about their research over the next year. Their projects will be available to read on the website this week and will also be circulated via the weekly newsletter.
PhD Prize
Our PhD Prize, supported by Taylor and Francis, was focused on art history research this year (we alternate between practice-led and art history research focus). We had a huge pool of entries and as one of the judges I can attest to the high quality of entries. It is great to see such diverse research being done across art history, conservation, art theory, and curatorial research. I am aware that many PhD graduates submitting for this year would have dealt with the setbacks of Covid-19 restrictions that curtailed travel, in-person conferences and even general engagement with their peers, so I would like to acknowledge that challenge and commend the research they have undertaken and the excellent theses they have written. The decision was very challenging, and my congratulations to our winner Dr Amelia Birch and the shortlisted entrants. We look forward to seeing how their research develops into the future. The winner and shortlisted entries will be available to view on the website this week and will also be circulated via the weekly newsletter.
Conference ‘Unruly Objects’ Perth
Thank you to the conference committee in Perth at the University of Western Australia for hosting this year’s conference. We have had a record number of panels over three days with researchers attending from across Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, the Pacific, Singapore, and elsewhere. Every year the conference takes on a different identity led by the local committee, we see regular attendees and long-term members and supporters, and hear about research, art and curation happening locally in the host city. The committee, led by WA rep Jessyca Hutchens, had curated a program of 76 sessions, four excellent keynote sessions with Ken Arnold, Khaled Sabsabi and Mikala Tai, Brenda L. Croft and Wang Qingsong, a dedicated First Nations led stream, a book fair, social events, and exhibition openings. We also supported the second iteration of the Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Māori, Pasifika caucus; this initiative has been led by Executive committee Members Ali Gumiliya Baker, Jessyca Hutchens and Fiona Foley.
Thank you to the full conference committee: Jessyca Hutchens with Kit Messham-Muir, Theo Costantino, Sam Beard, Rebecca McCauley, Oren Catts, Darren Jorgenson and Paul Boye. Thanks also to the team of volunteers led by Kaitlyn Taylor who helped everything run smoothly with wayfinding, tech support, registrations and more.
The 2026 conference will be held in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand, December 2-4th, led by Richard Bullen, Rosie Ibbotson and Barbara Garrie at the University of Canterbury.
ANZJA
This is the final year for Dr Verónica Tello as Editor-in-Chief and Dr Anastasia Murney as Managing Editor at UNSW leading the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art. They took over in 2022 and have produced a series of excellent volumes of the journal. The journal continues to publish across a diverse range of areas, featuring both established and emerging writers and researchers, local and international scholars. We are excited that Tristen Harwood will take the journal on and give it a home at VCA at the University of Melbourne from 2026. The full journal report will be available on the website shortly.
Advocacy
With Wendy Garden as Advocacy representative, we supported issues connected to our membership. We added our voices to the many protests against the cancellation of Khaled Sabsabi and Michael D’Agostino for the Venice Biennale by Creative Australia. We were pleased to see this decision reversed and to invite Khaled Sabsabi and Mikala Tai to speak at our 2025 conference.
A letter was written to raise our concerns about proposed job and program losses in the arts at the Australian National University, and we are pleased to see that these job cuts will not go ahead. There continue to be threats to jobs in the university sector across many universities, and I urge anyone who wants to coordinate support or advocacy to get in touch.
We supported the protests against the proposed cancellation of art history as a subject of study in school in New Zealand and I also wrote to government ministers in the Northern Territory to raise concerns about the proposal to scrap plans for the Northern Territory Art Gallery. We will update the membership with any outcomes when we know them.
Membership
Our numbers continue to be healthy, thank you to our 550 new and renewing members. A reminder to check your membership, we rely on memberships to cover the costs of our activities, including the journal, support for the conference, bursaries, complimentary membership and registrations for our Indigenous, Māori and Pacific members, pulling together the weekly news posts, and more.
Renewing your membership also guarantees you get your copy of the journal and access to the conference, AWAPAs and other programs. We have several membership drives during the year, so please also remind colleagues, new PhD students and others who might be interested in joining. We continue to make our newsletter open to everyone, you can share the sign up link with colleagues who might be interested, and we always welcome your news, job adverts and announcements.
We have continued to offer complimentary membership to Indigenous members as part of the initiatives recommended by our Executive, particularly Fiona Foley and Ali Gumiliya Baker.
Executive Committee
Thanks to the Executive committee for 2025: Sam Beard (Treasurer), Anthea Gunn (ACT), Nicholas Croggon (NSW), Raymond Spiteri (Aotearoa│New Zealand), Linda Tyler (Aotearoa│New Zealand), Joanna Barrkman (NT), Melanie Cooper (SA), Karen Hall (Tas), Rex Butler (Vic), Jessyca Hutchens (WA), Wendy Garden (Advocacy), Martyn Jolly (Artist rep), Fiona Foley (Indigenous Australian), Ali Gumillya Baker (Indigenous Australian), Caroline Vercoe (Māori and Pasifika), Gillian Daniel (Student/ECR), Amelia Birch (Student/ECR), Verónica Tello (Journal)
Our thanks to outgoing members of the Executive Linda Tyler, Fiona Foley, Verónica Tello, Joanna Barrkman and Martyn Jolly.
We have vacancies for Queensland, one for Aotearoa New Zealand, Advocacy and an Indigenous Australian rep. We have some expressions of interest but if you are interested in joining the executive please get in touch.
Welcome to new members from 2026 Tristen Harwood (journal), Gary Lee and Maurice O’Riordan (artist reps).
Final thanks again to Rebecca Renshaw, who is the first point of contact for many members, and manages the memberships, website and newsletter, AWAPAs, much of the conference admin, ad more. She goes above and beyond to support AAANZ in her role as business manager and I am always grateful for her advice and expertise.
Best wishes for a restful break and I look forward to working with everyone in 2026.
Dr Katrina Grant
President, AAANZ 2025-2026