Diversity Arts Australia (DARTS) welcomes Creative Australia’s decision to reinstate Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino as the Artistic Team representing Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale.
The original commission was a testament to the exceptional artistic calibre and vision of two of our most respected cultural leaders. Throughout the deeply challenging time following Creative Australia’s decision, Khaled and Michael have shown remarkable professionalism, integrity and strength. We stand in admiration of the way they have upheld their vision and look forward to seeing their work on the global stage.
We acknowledge and thank the many artists, organisations, and colleagues across the creative sector who mobilised, raised their voices, and stood in solidarity with Khaled and Michael, defending not just individual artists but the principle of freedom of expression itself. We further acknowledge the staff within Creative Australia who, in disagreement with the original decision, chose to speak up and stand firm in their values.
We celebrate the reinstatement of Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino as the Artistic Team representing Australia in the 2026 Venice Biennale, and we acknowledge Creative Australia for ultimately making the right decision. But we must not lose sight of the wider implications of Creative Australia’s actions leading and following their initial decision to withdraw the Biennale artistic team.
The independent review commissioned by Creative Australia focuses on governance decision-making surrounding the Biennale selection process. It identifies significant shortcomings in Creative Australia’s approach to risk management and internal procedures, particularly in relation to the selection of an artistic team whose work may engage with politically sensitive or so-called “contentious” themes. The review report highlights the need for clear and consistent processes that can both identify risk and uphold one of the agency’s core responsibilities: to support and promote freedom of artistic expression, a responsibility that it failed to meet in this instance.
As an organisation committed to racial equity and cultural diversity in the creative sectors, DARTS has long advocated for the protection of artistic freedom, including artists whose work engages with complex social and political themes. In our view, Creative Australia’s actions are not only procedurally flawed but must also be understood within a broader institutional pattern that has consistently undermined artists who speak to issues of social justice, race, and human rights. As research by RMIT and University of Melbourne confirms, structural inequality continues to shape who is seen, heard, and supported in our visual arts sector. Culturally and linguistically diverse artists remain underrepresented, underfunded, and often subjected to heightened scrutiny when their work is perceived as politically challenging. As we outlined in our February 2025 open letter, Creative Australia’s actions set a concerning precedent for how cultural institutions respond to external pressures, particularly when artists from Arab and Muslim backgrounds engage with political and social issues. It raised serious questions about the protection of artistic freedom in Australia, and exposed the fragility of institutional support for racialised voices when their work challenges dominant narratives.
We echo the Review Panel’s call for Creative Australia to proactively rebuild trust with the creative community. But this will require more than procedural and governance reform. It must involve deep, sustained engagement with historically excluded artists and communities, and a renewed public commitment to upholding artistic freedom as a core institutional value.
Making this truly right will require all of us in the Australian creative sector to recognise that such lapses in governance illustrate how issues of artistic freedom are intertwined with exclusion and discrimination. It is not simply an issue of the free flow of ideas, but of the silencing of culturally and racially marginalised voices. We thus stand in solidarity with renowned author and academic Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah*, journalist Antoinette Lattouf**, and the many other artists, cultural workers, and scholars, whose livelihoods have been threatened and reputations attacked for courageously speaking out against injustices.
We will continue to advocate for arts and media sectors as essential spaces for diverse and critical perspectives.
*The Australian Research Council (ARC) has formally suspended Dr Randa-Abdel Fattah’s Future Fellowship’s four-year grant project ‘Arab/Muslim Australian Social Movements since the 1970s: a hidden history’ following a request for an investigation by Minister of Education Jason Clare.
** Read our statement on Antoinette Lattouf’s landmark legal victory against her previous employer, the ABC.