Ten Curators in support of Khaled Sabsabi: Edition 4

Artist Profile will be publishing ten pieces of text from international and local curators as a series of editions. These distinguished curators provided their words voluntarily in support of Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino after Creative Australia “honoured Khaled and dishonoured him” (Simryn Gill, 7.30 Report) in less than a week of announcing Sabsabi and Dagostino as the 2026 Venice Biennale team to represent Australia.

The call for the reinstatement of Sabsabi and Dagostino has been loud and strong from within the visual arts community here and abroad. The curators in support of Sabsabi have previously written on and curated his artwork.

John Cheeseman is the Director of Mosman Art Gallery. Cheeseman has presented two major works of Khaled Sabsabi’s works: Syria, 2004, in 2014 and Unseen, 2023.

It’s surreal. A little over two weeks ago I was invited to a lunch celebrating the announcement of Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino as the official artistic team to represent Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale, and was seated next to Khaled himself. The small restaurant was filled with Creative Australia senior officials and supporters, as well as family and close associates of the artistic team. The mood was joyful and I was excited and thankful to be in such company.

Both in the speeches and the talk around the table, everyone seemed genuinely thrilled with the choice of Khaled as artist. Khaled is a dedicated and gifted artist with a national and international following, generous with his time and always available to mentor and assist those around him. Khaled’s life story is both complicated and challenging and it informs his artistic practice – child of the Lebanese Civil War, Muslim, refugee, migrant, hip-hopper, cultural worker and Western Sydney based visual artist. Khaled and I both grew up in Granville, in Western Sydney and although we didn’t know each other directly then, we share common networks and experiences from that time and over the years have worked together on multiple projects and have become friends. At the table Khaled said (somewhat presciently) to me ‘You know John, I never thought they would pick someone like me to represent Australia’.

The selection of Khaled and Michael was a cause for great celebration, especially among migrant communities and across Western Sydney. This was a great validation, a bringing together and recognition of non-mainstream communities, artistic practices and alternate forms of expression.  A contemporary piece set in a fractured world, Khaled’s work promised to draw from the artistic team’s lived experience as migrants and the cultural voices of Western Sydney to share the “lessons they may offer in negotiations of global futures.” And it was this promise, this opportunity to provide validation and a way ahead, that has been destroyed by the revocation of Creative Australia’s offer.  As one prominent Western Sydney arts administrator said to me, “What a disaster! I’m furious and heartbroken at the same time.”

Not long ago I worked with Khaled on a work called Unseen, 2023. Displayed to appreciative audiences at Mosman Art Gallery, it breached the divide in Sydney between East and West, with evocations of memory drawing our attention to what is unseen and unknowable. It was generous, inspiring and cathartic, bringing us all closer and increasing our level of understanding of the complex experience of contemporary Australia. Creative Australia’s revocation of its offer is not only a rejection of Khaled and his work, but also destroys the trust and many of the hopes of migrant communities who dare to think their experiences could be officially sanctioned as part of the Australian story – this decision reveals an official preference that they remain unseen and unheard.

Artwork: Khaled Sabsabi, Unseen, 2023, 235 (10 x 15cm) photographs, acrylic, coffee residue in room with coffee-stained canvas floor-ground coffee and acrylic paint, variable dimensions, photographed by Jacquie Manning. Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney.