ArtsHub said Palestine
I’m yet to come up with a catchy pun driven name for what will no doubt be a regular little focus area for this page, maybe ArtsedIN? Kind of sounds like AssIn. I started this page and am trying to write more regularly again for two main reasons. One, I finally realised posting my rants on Instagram stories is inaccessible for a million obvious reasons but also unreliable as others can’t easily reference and build on what I have to say or share.
The other is weirdly, every other ArtsHub article that isn’t just a straight paid for placement has aggravated me to the point that I feel I could fill this entire platform with a series of slightly better researched responses to ArtsHub articles.
For those who aren't aware, ArtsHub is kind of like if LinkedIn was forced to have a separate platform just for artists and the arts sector. I'm sure just as much of the content on there is written by either CoPilot or ChatGPT much the same as LinkedIn.
Full disclosure, I love that ArtsHub exists because it means for the large part, I never have to open LinkedIn. ArtsHub though has been this defacto place for accessible arts industry news, articles and dialogue throughout so called Australia's arts sector.
Despite being heavily paywalled behind a $9.90 monthly membership its where almost every arts related job is posted, where every major exhibition and arts festival pushes in paid announcements and placements and where a few select writers tend to have an inflated influence on arts sector conversations. This influence is inflated because they have a monopoly on communication and information surrounding the arts job market and opportunities in so called Australia.
This is where their fluffed articles as content between the paid placements becomes highly problematic. If you search arts news, arts Australia or any other combo of those words its pretty likely ArtsHub will be the top placed search result.
And again, I rely on ArtsHub in a similar way and have found a bunch of really informative articles by various writers on there over the years. But they are actively flirting with this line between journalism and tabloid opinion to pad out the site's content between an overwhelming amount of terrible paid placements.
Where are the experts on specific subjects? Where is the critical coverage of the so-called Australian arts sector that's so lacking in our industry? Where are the bold voices? Where's any genuine engagement with what's currently happening in the sector?
I understand that I’m possibly asking for more of ArtsHub then its own stated purpose but unfortunately its occupying space beyond its own mandate out of necessity to sell memberships and paid placements. And with so-called Australia’s arts manager class getting most of their arts dialogue and news from ArtsHub it's likely directing the arts sector and who gets what opportunities from a position of ignorance.
This gets me to the recent wave of censorship in the so called Australian arts sector of “Pro Palestinian” artists, arts workers and art workers. If you search “Palestine” on ArtsHub, eight articles will pop up. If you search "censorship", eleven articles come up and if you search “Israel” seven articles pop up, largely the same articles as from the “Palestine” search. The oldest article for all three searches was from December 2024 where under “Biggest Censorship” they had the removal of “Jesus Speaks to the Daughters of Jerusalem” by Philjames from the 2024 Blake Art Prize.
No mention that just a month earlier in November 2023, Mabel Li, Harry Greenwood and Megan Wilding from Sydney Theatre Company’s production of “The Seagull” wore keffiyeh’s onstage during curtain call and sparking an intense backlash that led to the cancellations of shows and board members and major donors resigning.
The accuracy of this desktop research of ArtsHub is made impossible by the way ArtsHub’s archiving process appears to hide older articles from search results. But this further proves the point of how ArtsHub’s way of operating is dictating the conversations of the arts sector.
For instance, there’s no mention of Mike Parr being dropped by Anna Schwartz Gallery for a performance piece in 2023, that vaguely referenced a series of news headlines surrounding Israel, Gaza, Hamas and Palestine at the time. This ended an almost forty year relationship between Parr and Schwartz. Yet I can’t find a single article on ArtsHub through their search or a browser, referring to this major industry shake up around artistic freedom and censorship.
I use the sentence “this gets me to” too much but this does indeed get me to the recent protests at the National Gallery of Victoria on July 27, 2025. The protest was organised in part because of recent news of “A secret, extravagant Zionist dinner — and the renaming of a hall”. A well researched article by artist, Matt Chun (linked above), which included dozens of anonymous tip offs by NGV staff also helped ensure the success of the protests.
Victorian Premiere Jancinta Allen of the Labor Party specifically referred to the protests during the following morning Parliamentary session calling them extremists and antisemitic saying;
“It is shameful behaviour and I condemn it because the generosity of the Gandels, it’s enriched my family.”
The same John Gandell who was quoted on October 13, 2023 as saying “Israel has ‘no choice’ but to hammer Gaza”. The same Gandell who’s mentioned by name as one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s biggest supporters of Israel and donates millions to both the arts and Zionist causes. I specifically recommend reading Matt Chun’s article “Have you comprehensively rejected the Gandel Foundation?”.
After the protests at the NGV a number of articles specifically targeting but never naming Matt Chun, an independent artist, were fired off across so called Australia’s leading media platforms. To which Matt Chun further responded to again here and here. And despite it all it appears the Gandel’s are happy to keep donating to the NGV and well the NGV continues to be a happy little piggy at the slop trough.
For ArtHub’s efforts they responded Sydney Harbor Bridge protests and no doubt the NGV ones with this article. Which is something I'd expect to see churned out by ChatGPT with its complete lack of well anything. No offence to the author David Burton because it is a perfect ArtHub article and I hope somewhere a million drafts ago is something with a little more substance and teeth or relevance. It does however carry a perfect tone of perfectly sculpted managerial speak much like ChatGPT is so well known to do. I think Burton wrote this though and this is just my opinion and response.
Despite all of the coverage surrounding the NGV, the article specifically stays in its self prescribed lane of focusing on the theatre and literary sectors. And with such a narrow focus it still manages to omit any recent controversies that might have meant a stickier conversation, like for instance Karen Wyld’s cancelling at the State Library of Queensland.
It panders to those who have a vested interest in taking offence to recent Palestinian protests, while offering some broad suggestions for arts organisations to navigate potential protests, with my favourite lines from the article being;
“Artistic censorship requires open dialogue between artists, audiences and administrators. Arts organisations could engage stakeholders prior to opening nights, explain why artists wish to express solidarity and offer forums for discussion.”
Burton isn’t wrong either and unfortunately due to ArtsHub’s business model I’m actually impressed this article exists. My earlier critique of the article aside, I doubt any other version of this article would be allowed to ever exist. Burton has managed to get something published by corporate art media that the movers and shakers of the so called Australian arts sector will at least see.
It's just after almost two years of this, I was kind of hoping we'd be a little further down the road than this.
Actually I lied, my favourite part of the article is that they used a stock image from a photographer in Washington,DC to accompany the article. Just to ensure the article was as safely distanced from anything actually happening on ground here that you know, might involve a large arts body that regularly pays for placements.
But this is where my true gripe lies. This is where the broader problem of the arts complicity in a genocide hides. It's where a national funding body can cancel an independently selected artist from the Venice Biennale, only to reinstate them a few months later and we all line like little happy piggies as they do their PR roadshow and open up for the next round of funding applications. It’s not just the NGV, it's your local arts organisation as well but where else will they get the money?
Like it not ArtsHub is currently where this information is disseminated from the sector and to the sector.
As of right now though, it's polluting those in positions of power with paid for slop. Without any genuine critique of anything, that maybe LinkedIn is a better platform? Lacking genuine critiques of the current status quo in the arts and especially of platforms like ArtsHub, major organisations like the NGV and Creative Australia will never need to change. But I think they can do better and I still believe most artists and arts workers want them be better, they just don't know how to navigate organising for something better. Maybe because platforms like ArtsHub keep letting them get away with being actively hostile to the arts, the same workers and sector they purport to represent and fund.
Labor Minister Tony Burke is the Federal Minister for the Arts, Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Cyber Security and of course Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. Just two days ago Burke specifically cancelled the visas for Mona and Osama Zahed along with their four children. A family who is currently living amongst the rubble in Gaza. A family Matt Chun and his partner Tess were supporting to escape the genocide and move too so called Australia, through their publishing business, Slingshot Books. Burke's visa cancellation came two days after a hit piece by Herald Sun ‘journalist’ Carly Douglas.
This is the consequence of what speaking up against the complicity of the arts sector in an ongoing genocide looks like. Two independent literary artists being targeted by the machinations of major media organisations and the Federal government. Resulting in the Zahed's family's attempt to flee a genocide being squashed by our Arts Minister.
This is the same Arts Minister that was involved in the Khaled scandal that's now all good, I guess. Maybe I just need to throw on a snout and line up.
You can read Matt Chun's and Amy McQuire's response to Burke cancelling the Zahed's visas here.
You can support the Mona Zahed and her family here.
Matt and Amy's article ends with this plee to demand Burke reinstate Mona's and her family's visas.
