To Creative Australia –

We write with deep concern about the rescindment of artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino from their selection to represent Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale.

In its mission statement, Creative Australia pledges to ‘fund’ and ‘champion’ Australian artists and promote our work on a ‘national and international scale.’ The treatment of Sabsabi and Dagostino has recklessly flouted this commitment. In its opacity and severity, it has alarmed the entire arts sector, and by extension our wide-ranging audiences. It has compromised the integrity of Creative Australia, provoking resignations from some of their best workers. We stand with them.

It is clear that Sabsabi and Dagostino’s rescindment stemmed from misrepresentation of video works made 18 and 19 years ago, initiated by a right-wing media outlet. Creative Australia’s statement that the work planned for Venice may generate ‘prolonged and divisive debate’ projects on to the Sabsabi/Dagostino team the bias that the board of Creative Australia itself has displayed.

Sabsabi’s Muslim Lebanese heritage has made him vulnerable to the sort of racist attacks we have seen escalate globally during the past 18 months of genocide in Palestine, and the region more broadly. We stand against all forms of racism.

The implications of political censorship for artists working in all sectors including literature are enormous: not only can we be damned for work made decades ago; we can also be dismissed for work we have yet to create.

Sabsabi and Dagostino’s rescindment echoes increasing discrimination against Australian writers of Arabic, Muslim and West Asian heritage. It aligns with a long history of censure levelled against artists from other minority groups when creating work that interrogates power. We are frightened that more artists will lose opportunities based on prejudice, robbing the general public of powerful, affecting work.

We exist in an ecosystem: we writers interpret, critique and collaborate with our comrades across all artistic genres, as they do with ours. We bring to audiences a rich cross-disciplinary discourse that is unafraid of difference and risk, delights in ambiguity, and embraces new and strange worlds in all their diversity.

As authors, editors, publishers, critics and workers throughout the literary sector, we are alarmed by the escalation of institutional censorship and political interference in the arts. The board’s decision has damaged our international reputation as a country where artistic freedoms are valued. It strikes at the very foundation of our democracy. We stand with Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino in their requests that Creative Australia:

• Reinstate the artistic team to represent Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale

• Apologise to the artistic team and the sector

• Trust in the expertise of the peers and their decisions while prohibiting Board intervention

• Arrange a meeting between the artistic team and board to discuss their action