Join co-editors Miranda Samuels and Shevaun Wright for the launch of the 2022 Countess Report at ACCA. Miranda Samuels and Shevaun Wright will present and unpack the methodology and data collection and analysis findings from the new report, seeking feedback and discussion with the general public, artists and arts workers, curators, gallery and museum directors, board members and art collectors.
The 2022 Countess Report is here (www.countess.report), the artist-led organisation’s third sector-wide report on gender representation in the Australian art world. Co-edited by Miranda Samuels and Shevaun Wright, the report continues Countess’s long standing inquiry into the constitution of artistic merit and legitimation, and has been expanded to include analysis of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representation.
The report analyses gallery and museum exhibition data as well as data on artist education, prizes, funding, organisational governance, collection acquisitions, and commercial gallery representation, from the calendar year of 2022. Approximately 22,000 artists across more than 450 galleries and arts institutions were manually counted. Data on acquisitions and exhibitions was provided directly by state and territory galleries, allowing for closer scrutiny of acquisition methods, including the Cultural Gift Program.
According to Countess, ‘the report aims to not only hold arts institutions accountable to their representational claims and ongoing diversity strategies, but to contribute to and, at times, challenge existing research and reportage around value and artistic success, especially where the impact of gender, race, and class dynamics is obscured. Our adoption of the corporate and bureaucratic language of a museum annual report is in service of counteracting and interfering with cultural narratives premised on capitalist and colonial wisdom, and our use of quantitative data is similarly strategic.’
The Report has drawn on the expertise of numerous advisors and consultants from across the sector and with financial support from the Sheila Foundation, the Copyright Agency, and Creative Australia.