As part of university-wide budget cuts, the QUT Art Museum has been forced to cancel all 2025 exhibitions, replacing the planned programming with one exhibition per year to be selected from the University’s collection.
The 2025 exhibitions included two Indigenous Australian exhibitions, a solo exhibition by renowned Palawa artist and QUT alumna Jemima Wyman, and an exhibition by Thai-born Australian ceramist Vipoo Srivilasa, a former artist-in-residence at QUT.
To heighten the offense, comments made by QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Sheil AO regarding the perceived shortcomings of the Art Museum have inflamed tensions in the arts community.
According to ArtsHub, when presenting to QUT staff and discussing how spending cuts would impact the institution’s future, VC Sheil referred to the type of activities the Art Museum engages in as “nice-to-do things” that don’t directly benefit the University.
“It’s looking at some of the nice-to-do things that had more benefits for the community than QUT. So, we [have] paused the exhibitions into the QUT Art Museum. A number of them have supported artists from the community rather than QUT,” she said.
The decision and comments from Sheil have come under fire from the industry, with academics, artists, writers, and QUT alumni coming together to push back against the outcome.
QUT Alum, practicing visual artist, and director of artist-run-initiative Undone ARI Amy Collins said she believes the Art Museum has had a massive impact on culture at the university as a whole and the changes will have a profoundly negative impact on student experience.
“I think it’s going to have a disastrous impact on the student experience, to be completely honest,” she said.
“Even just coming into uni as an artist, the art world and where you can go in the art world, it’s kind of all behind this blurry veil. And having institutions like the QUT Art Museum … where you’re studying, is so important for seeing where you can go, where your career can take you.”
Collins is concerned about what this means for the future of QUT’s arts programming, and how a significant change like this will impact opportunities for those looking to pursue a career in the arts.
“I fear that it’s going to have a really big impact on the nurturing and fostering of arts careers at QUT. There are so many alumni from QUT that have gone on to have a massive impact on art culture in Australia and beyond, even with Archie Moore recently winning the [Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion award].”
In a post on his Instagram account, Troy-Anothony Bayliss, an esteemed First Nations artist and QUT alum who had a significant solo exhibition at the Art Museum in 2023, described the sentiment from Sheil as offensive and inaccurate.
“I note QUT Art Museum has fostered significant learning of the complexity of First Nations experiences that make up the foundations of our nation,” he wrote.
“If this work can only be described as feel-good community work, then there is a serious disconnect between university management and the so-called ‘real world’.”
Students and alums on StalkerSpace have voiced their displeasure with this decision, many referencing the Vice Chancellor’s well-known expensive bathroom remodel from 2020, others lamenting the loss of future internship opportunities.
“RIP any internship opportunities that students could get here. This was a good source of high-quality gallery work in a genuine “real world” setting and now that’s basically gone.”
“Actually gross behaviour.”
“Art classes were held for International and Domestic students for many years at Gardens Point. They were very popular, and we had an annual exhibition and student performance each November. Both staff and students participated. This added culture to the students’ degrees.”
VC Sheil’s comments have definitely hit a nerve with Collins. When asked what she thought about the University boss’ statement, Collins said she was gobsmacked.
“I just think it’s so out of touch. It’s honestly just bizarre.”
“I feel like it just completely disregards all of this really, really important, valuable and crucial work that the museum has done for QUT students, and beyond.”
