In light of escalating measures to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus that have led to widespread job losses and economic hardship for many people and has created much uncertainty in planning the 2020 AAANZ conference. AAANZ and the 2020 Conference Organising Committee have made the decision to postpone the conference scheduled to be held in Sydney in December this year.
The conference will be delayed 12 months and will be hosted by the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales and other partners in December 2021.
While we expect the crisis to have passed by the end of this year and life to have returned to some sort of normalcy by December, the financial fallout will take a much longer time for many people to recover from. Unfortunately, it has become no longer financially or logistically viable to hold the conference this year. Many of our members, particularly students, postgraduates, sessional staff and artists are amongst those hardest hit and AAANZ wants to be in a position to offer increased financial support for the 2021 conference through bursaries and other possible measures to enable as many members as possible to attend.
We apologise to all those of you who had already enthusiastically responded to the Call for Panels, issued a few weeks ago before the escalation of the crisis forced our reconsideration of the event.
The annual AAANZ Book Prizes will go ahead as planned and winners announced on the AAANZ website.
This is a very disappointing decision for all concerned but necessary in the current circumstances. Deferring the conference to 2021 will maximize the opportunity for us all to come together and celebrate our discipline and the importance of the visual arts to the very fabric of society.
Wendy Garden Mark Ledbury
AAANZ President 2020 Conference Convenor