On ArtsHub last week, a grants manager for “a significant Australian arts organisation” wrote anonymously that, should his or her organisation be a successful applicant to Catalyst – the Federal Government’s new arts funding agency – he or she would recommend to the Board that it not accept the funds in protest at the Australian government’s plans to return 267 asylum seekers to Nauru.
Drawing inspiration from the artists’ boycott of the 2014 Sydney Biennale, and perhaps emboldened by the new cultural activism epitomised by last year’s #freethearts campaign, the grants manager raised the question of whether Ai Weiwei should end his current exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in protest:
