The 2024 ARLIS/ANZ Conference theme, Being Seen, is for Art Librarians + Information Professionals and those who collaborate with them!  The 2024 conference will be held in Sydney on the 28 - 29 November.

In 2022 our virtual conference investigated adaptation in difficult circumstances. In 2024, we’re back in the building, coming together to reflect on the ways in which libraries, particularly art libraries, draw attention to their collections, collaborators and communities.  

Seeing is believing. But ways of seeing are in a rapidly evolving state. Art libraries are not just keepers of collections, but engines for seeing and being seen. 

Art libraries are gateways to visibility to artists and their practices, both traditional and bleeding edge. To materials and methodologies, far flung movements and local arts collectives. 

Art libraries are also adopters of new discovery systems, while rebuilding description systems that are culturally safe for seeing and being seen by all. 

Art librarians show us that looking is never as simple as it seems. An art library conference is a chance to make our work, our systems, our collections and our collaborators truly seen.  

Pre-conference gathering

National Art School (NAS), Darlinghurst

15:00 - 16:00

Select from

• Jessie Street National Women Library, Ultimo

• Discover Rare Books + Special Collections, Fisher Library, University of Sydney (limited space, please express interest in the registration form)

DAY TWO

Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Naala Badu, Sydney

8:30 - 9:00

9:00 - 9:10

9:10 - 10:00

10:15 - 13:00

14:00 - 15:00

15:00 - 16:00

Elizabeth Little

Summary: Being Seen: The Joy of Recognition. As a national collecting institution, the National Gallery of Australia has a remit to represent the whole of Australia within its collections. This extends to the collections of the Research Library & Archives. One of the joys of showing people our collection has been their reactions at seeing themselves unexpectedly represented – or not. This short presentation will provide an overview of Gallery’s Research Library & Archives artist and art organization ephemera files, small exhibition catalogues and pamphlets and other materials such as the collected archives.  Also discussed will be the ways the Research Library & Archives has leveraged public programs and other opportunities to expand the representation of regional galleries and individual artists in our collection, with reference to programs such as Wesfarmers Indigenous Leadership Program, ANKA Arts Workers Extension Program and the Regional Galleries Art Forum.

BIO: Elizabeth Little is an experienced reference librarian and library manager who has worked in the GLAM sector for over 30 years. She joined the NGA in 2020 as Manager, Research Library & Archives, following 15 years at the National Art School (Sydney) as Librarian and Library & Learning Centre Manager. She has also worked at the State Library of NSW as education officer and librarian, and as a museum guide with the NSW Historic Houses Trust. Elizabeth is Chair, ARLIS/ANZ National Executive and an associate member of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). Elizabeth holds degrees in Library and Information Science, Art History and Theory, and Arts Administration.

Celia Brown

Workshop summary: What collection? Object-based learning as a site/sight for information literacy instruction in studio art practice. Art Librarians working in higher education are usually associated with offering information literacy skills for art theory and research. They are visible in computer labs and classrooms. But is there a place for the art librarian in the studio, where students are learning to articulate and develop their practice? Information as Inspiration has been developed for National Art School 2nd Year students who are enrolled in a Studio Theory Seminar within their chosen department. Embedded into this studio curriculum, the 60 min workshop utilises Object Based Learning principles to deliver information literacy skills in an engaging and hands-on way. Art students are familiar with visual observation, but description and development of a vocabulary with which to describe and contextualise their practice can be a challenge. Keyword generation can be difficult for artists who are often trying to describe abstract ideas. Everyday objects such as Barbie dolls serve to inspire new ideas and connections which may be material, aesthetic, cultural or political. From this point, participants are primed to generate keywords and hit the search tools. Come and experience information literacy in a new way and see how art librarians can be visible in studio practice. BYO device and prepare to participate!

BIO: Originally coming from a performance background, Celia has been a librarian/ educator for 20 years and an art librarian for almost 10. She has predominantly worked with creative practitioners across art, music and the humanities, and is currently deeply ensconced in her role as Librarian at the National Art School where she specialises in Information Literacy for artists. She also coordinates the Library Stairwell Gallery and the NAS Library’s Artists’ Book Award, as well as taking adventures into studio curriculum, collection development and lots of student engagement. Celia holds a Graduate Diploma of Information Management (UTS Sydney) and a BA in Anthropology and Performance Studies (University of Sydney). This is her third time presenting at an ARLIS conference.

Dr Megan R. Fizell + Dr Emily Morandini

Summary: UNSW Library’s Exhibitions Program establishes the Library as a cultural centre point on campus where students, researchers, and the broader community intersect. It is also an opportunity for students to encounter leading research and ideas outside their nominated disciplines. 

 This presentation will cover three recent exhibitions at UNSW Library, namely Sonus Maris (2023), Care is a relationship (2023) and Living Water (2024). These exhibitions draw on collaborative exhibition development and design methods to produce engaging multidisciplinary projects. UNSW’s key research outcomes address global challenges in fields like biomedical sciences, environmental sustainability, advanced materials, and social policy. We demonstrate how the Library’s Exhibitions Program gives visibility to this work by showcasing research that fuses art, science, and engineering through multisensory displays and related public programs such as talks, workshops, and object-based learning sessions. These collaborative exhibitions reconceptualise research by partnering with academics, creatives, and communities, making content accessible to a broader audience and creating connections between people, disciplines, and faculties across campus.

BIO: Dr Megan R. Fizell is the Curator, Special Collections & Exhibitions at UNSW Library. Megan has worked in the GLAMR sector in London and Sydney as a curator, writer, and art historian. Megan centres her current curatorial practice on reconceptualising interdisciplinary research, using inclusive and collaborative methods to create engaging, multisensory exhibitions and experiences.

BIO: Dr Emily Morandini is the Exhibitions Coordinator at UNSW Library. Emily is an arts facilitator, artist, and curator and has worked in the GLAMR and education sectors for several years. Emily is interested in the ability of art and exhibition-making to communicate knowledge and ideas beyond traditional disciplines, to connect with broad audiences.

Mia Turner

Summary: From Tradition to Inclusion: Rethinking Residency Programs. In this session, I’ll share the wild ride of reimagining the UTS Library Creative In-Residence Program. We decided to trade in the old-school solitary artist model in favour of a playful, community-first approach that invites both emerging and established artists to collaborate with our spaces, collections, and vibrant community. After a risky rebrand in 2022, applications soared by bringing in diverse, high-quality proposals—and it’s still growing. One standout project, BOOK WITCH by Katy B Plummer, turned our library into a magical space where art met everyday campus life. Through creative public programming, we’ve redefined what our residency brings to our community, inviting everyone to come play, create, and connect.

BIO: Mia Turner is the Exhibitions and Engagements Curator at UTS Library, where she has led the Creative In-Residence program for 3 years, building meaningful community connections through public programming. Her experience in leading a tier-one student program ignited her passion for accessible, hands-on engagement and co-creating authentic experiences. Mia thrives on blending fresh ideas with a strong understanding of people and spaces. Her values in user experience, empathy, and community engagement drive her work, with a focus on human-centred design, sustainability, and making art accessible to all.

Estee Sarsfield

Workshop summary: Zine making with Estee. Zines (“zeens" - from magazine), are independently produced DIY publications, usually made for love rather than profit, and filled with any combination of art, poetry, activism, literature - the limits are endless and the results are always magical. This is a fun and hands-on zine-making workshop where you will collage, draw, write and scribble to produce your own zine. You'll be guided through the process and introduced to different zine formats and folding/binding techniques. This workshop will ask you to bring together themes from the conference and consider the possible futures of art libraries. How might we use zines to guide us towards better futures? To explore alternative futures or dream up utopias? Your zine might be a speculative guide to libraries after humans, a manifesto for a better future, or a catalogue of rare books from the year 2100. 

BIO: Estee Sarsfield is an illustrator, designer, educator and zine maker, living and working in the Blue Mountains. She is a co-director of creative printing co-op, the Rizzeria, a founding member of the Mtns Zine Club and organises the annual Blue Mountains Zine Fair.

Lucy Hawthorne

Summary: A hoarder, an art librarian, and a bit of cash: on the creation of the Plimsoll Gallery Archive. This lightning talk will provide a critical overview of a 2023 project archiving job, for which an archive was created for the University of Tasmania’s Plimsoll Gallery. The archive was created from the office materials of the retired gallery coordinator of over three decades. A loading bay of packing boxes was reduced to fifteen archive boxes and a finding aid. What gets kept for future generations requires both individuals and institutions to care about resources of all sizes and subjects over the long-term, but art archives so often fall through the gaps. The creation of the archive will be discussed in the context of archiver bias, arguing that bias can be a positive thing.

BIO: Lucy Hawthorne is a librarian, arts writer and artist. She currently manages the Mineral Resources Tasmania Geoscience Library in Hobart. She worked at the Mona museum library for twelve years until 2023, has taught art theory and worked in special collections at the University of Tasmania. She’s also taught in the Master of Information Studies program at CSU. Hawthorne holds a PhD in art theory, 'The Museum as Art: site-specific art in Australia's public museums', from the University of Tasmania (UTAS), and a Master of Information Studies (Librarianship) from Charles Sturt University (CSU). https://www.lucyhawthorne.com.au/

Ellen Newton

Summary: A Tale of Two Potters: Gwyn Hanssen Pigott and Anne Dangar. Two eminent Australian potters Gwyn Hanssen Pigott OAM (1935–2013) and Anne Dangar (1885-1951) are included in the extensive archive collections held  at the National Gallery of Australia’s Research Library & Archives.  During 2023-34 Ellen Newton rehoused and described these collections in finding aids for which have been published online via the Research Library’s catalogue. In this presentation Ellen will discuss these two Australian women potters who travelled  to Europe for inspiration but followed very different life paths and art styles, and highlight select items of interest in their archives. In MS 112 The Papers of  Gwyn Hanssen Pigott diaries, sketches and glaze technical notes have shared insight into how Hanssen Pigott developed her pale palette oeuvre.  MS 159 The Papers of  Anne Dangar includes a series of letters from and to the artist while she lived and worked at the artist commune in Moly-Sabata, Salons, Isere, France. These letters reflect Dangar’s involvement in the Cubist movement and life in rural France during pre- and post-World War II. Ellen will discuss behind the scenes tasks of rehousing and describing artist archives in finding aids for, recounting the challenges and rewards of working on archives and enhancing their discoverability for exhibition and research.

BIO: Ellen Newton works as the Library & Archives Assistant at the National Gallery of Australia Research Library & Archives in Canberra. She has worked at the National Gallery of Australia and Parliament House, Canberra across visitor experience, library, archives, and art collection roles. In her current role, she assists with the Research Library & Archives books and serials collection, archives and special collections, which include audio-visual, posters and the Art and Artist ephemera files. Ellen has presented talks on art, culture, and language both nationally and internationally, including at the Selasar Sunaryo Art Space in Cimenyan, Indonesia and Nara University, Japan. Ellen is fluent in Japanese, which she has used to translate works for publication including Art from Milingimbi: Taking Memories Back (2016) by Cara Pinchbeck. She has a double degree in  Art History & Curatorship and Printmaking & Drawings from the Australian National University

Lauren Turton

Summary: Why Collect Artists’ Books? Artspace Mackay is a regional art gallery that has been collecting and advocating for the artists’ book medium for over 20 years. This presentation will talk about Artspace Mackay’s ongoing interest in this medium, providing an overview of the 2025 Libris Awards (Artspace Mackay’s biennial artists’ book prize) and the collection's history, from its beginning as a local library collection to present—where artists' books are integrated into all aspects of the gallery’s programming, through commissions and curatorial projects that affirm their place within a contemporary art context. 

 BIO: Lauren Turton is an Australian curator specialising in contemporary art from Queensland. Since 2017 she has been lead curator at Artspace Mackay (Yuwi Country) managing care of the gallery’s art collection including the largest public collection of artists’ books held outside of a capital city. Lauren draws on a range of artforms through her curatorial projects including contemporary Australian painting, artists’ book practice, printmaking,  wood-fired pottery, and site-specific installation-based practice. Her recent curatorial projects include Jemima Wyman: Crisis Patterns (2024), Fire and Ash: The Woodfire Pottery of Arthur and Carol Rosser (2023), In Bloom (2023) and Davida Allen: Colourful Expressions (2023). Lauren is currently a Propel Fellow (2024-25 cohort, Association of Art Museum Curators, New York). 

Tim Jones + Catherine Hammond

Summary: The website Find New Zealand Artists was launched in 2013 by project partners Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki along with seven other contributing libraries, it has become a standard reference source for biographical information about Aotearoa New Zealand artists. It is cited in other sources, is regularly updated, has embedded links to a range of other projects, and has been translated into te reo Māori. Created by art librarians primarily as an index to artist files held in New Zealand libraries, it was envisaged as a pointer to other sources of information and contains almost no primary research or visual material. The site itself is so simple that it costs practically nothing to run, and is found to be useful in ways unimagined in 2013. The tenth birthday of Find New Zealand Artists is a moment both to reflect on its success and to consider how it could be made better. How could it be integrated with other name authority schema? Or connected with collection or image databases? What other source material could it index? Could its scope be extended beyond visual artists to include musicians, dancers, architects or writers? Could its scope be extended geographically? How would any such developments be evaluated? Should a successful project be left alone, or are there opportunities waiting to be seized?

 In this presentation, Catherine Hammond and Tim Jones will consider some of these questions in detail.

BIO: Tim Jones is the librarian and archivist at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, the public art museum in Christchurch, New Zealand. He has been an active member of ARLIS-ANZ for over 20 years. He has presented at previous ARLIS-ANZ conferences, and elsewhere, usually on subjects related to managing information about art and artists in systematic and structured ways. He was a co-founder, with Catherine Hammond and others, of the website Find New Zealand Artists which he still jointly administers. He has overseen  the digitization of a large volume of New Zealand fine and applied art material and is passionate about making this material freely and widely available.

BIO:  Catherine Hammond has worked in leadership roles in the arts and cultural sector in Aotearoa New Zealand for over two decades. She is Director of Collections and Research at Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira and was formerly Hocken Librarian at the University of Otago, Head of Documentary Heritage at Auckland Museum, and Research Library Manager at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. She is a Trustee of the UNESCO NZ Memory of the World, and a former chair of the ARLIS/ANZ New Zealand Chapter. Catherine is a published writer, editor and curator, and has led the development of award-winning cultural heritage websites. Her research interests centre around Aotearoa New Zealand art histories, the relationship between contemporary art and archives, and the development of user-centred collection access for cultural heritage collections in both physical and online spaces.

Martin Shub

Summary: It seems that my digital publications have found a lovely umbrella term in “Being Seen”. My work publishing Art Biographies and Art Prizes websites and associated publications is about surfacing, collating and publishing information about contemporary Australian artists and art prizes. There is an undeniably strong relationship between these two knowledge domains. Selection in art prizes provides a pathway to identifying active and high-performing artists in a way that other group exhibitions don’t manage. Did you know that in 2023 the artist Virginia Keft was a finalist in at least 14 prizes? Despite this many people still aren’t aware of her work or that the artist Lauren Starr won the biggest art prize in Australia in 2022 - $150,000. When your clients are looking for topical, current biographical information about Australian artists you could direct them to these sites.

BIO: Publisher Martin Shub’s Discovery Media has been on the forefront of documenting Australian art and artists since the early 1990s, publishing the Australian Visual Artists Database (AVAD), which became a standard reference in State and university library collections. AVAD included the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Visual Artists Database (NATSIVAD), which has been documenting indigenous artists’ careers throughout Australia for 30 years. Riding the early digital wave, Art Right Now was the first Australian multimedia CD-ROM profiling contemporary Australian artists, followed by OzBiogs, a web-based subscription database of Australian artists. More recently, Discovery Media has been profiling and tracking art prizes across Australia through the popular Art Prizes Planner website and iPhone/Android apps.

Kêyeele Lawler-Dormer + Ben Ong 

Summary: The National Art Archive at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) holds the largest collection of artists' archives in Australia. Since 1955, it has collected material from artists, commercial galleries, individuals, and other organisations. This paper discusses the methodology and decision-making involved in a small team digitisation project and highlights the benefits of focusing on female representation in Art Archives.  Completed in June 2024, the Women Artists Archives Project was a collaborative initiative by the Archive and AGNSW’s conservation team to enhance the visibility of female artists within the Archive Collection. Made possible through the generous support of Sally White OAM through the Conservation Benefactors program. This project focused on conserving, rehousing, and digitising artist sketchbooks and issues of Undergrowth magazine created by women. Items were selected based on their visual impact, historical importance, relevance to the exhibition program, potential to boost research and public engagement.  

The project required creative thinking and the provision of innovative solutions such as: photography set ups, adapting open-source book cradles for digitisation, tracking workflows with excel, and optimising data ingestion into the collection management system. These solutions allowed for the team to successfully treat and digitise 550 high-priority items across six archives making them further accessible to the public.   

BIO: Kêyeele completed a Master of Cultural Material Conservation at the University of Melbourne majoring in Paper Conservation, progressing from a background in Fine Arts and Art History. Following a career in Arts Administration in small galleries in New Zealand, Kêyeele has spent the past eight years working as a Paper and Book conservator, both privately and in institutions across New South Wales and The National Archives UK. Kêyeele has most recently worked across exhibitions and digitisation projects at the Art Gallery of NSW, with a key focus on the AGNSW Library and the National Art Archives.  

BIO:Completing his Diploma of Photography in 2004 Ben has been working as a professional photographer full time since 2003. Initially establishing himself in Fine Art and Fashion, and later to settle as Head Technician under Warren Macris of High Res Digital Imaging for 14 years – widely regarded as Australia’s most recognised fine art reproduction and restoration house. With a specialisation in film drum scanning and fluid mounting as well as art reproduction, Ben has also taught Photoshop and Colour Management at UTS. He later would go on to help establish the setup of one of Sydney’s largest and last remaining film labs, before settling at AGNSW as a Digitisation Photographer. 

Simon Welsh

Workshop summary: Collage is made up of magazine and newspaper clippings, discarded books, packaging, coloured or handmade papers, portions of other artworks or texts, photographs and found objects. Perfect mediums when working in the library industry. In this Being Seen workshop we will explore contemporary collage styles and create unique self portrait pieces that represent your style . The classes will be lead by experienced collage artist and Waverley Librarian Simon Welsh, no experience is necessary.  Just bring you creativity. All collage materials are provided. 

BIO: Born in Sydney, Simon Welsh is a collage artist, graphic designer and librarian. Welsh explores the unlimited potential of the figurative genre, exploring shape, movement, gender and sexuality. Influenced by the Masters, sculpture and the Renaissance, he reinterprets traditional mediums through a modern queer lens or Queerlage. Welsh’s work is often exploratory and created from a wide range of materials, much of his work is by chance and play and allows the pieces to direct a new narrative. Simon’s work has been shown domestically and internationally, at the Kaos Int Festival of Collage, a finalist at Midsummer, Fisher’s Ghost, The Lake Mac, Gosford, Blacktown, BAS, and the Nillumbik and is a member of the Sydney Collage society. He has been teaching collage for 6 years now and has worked in the public library industry for 12 years.

Duncan McColl

Summary: “Show me again...” Preserving, rediscovering and reviving the almost forgotten. The Art Gallery of New South Wales is a project partner in the Archiving Australian Media Arts (AAMA), an Australian Research Council LIEF-funded initiative led by Swinburne University of Technology. The project is trialing the EaaSi (Emulation as a Service Infrastructure) platform, originally developed by Yale University, which allows access to digital resources through preserved software. The project focuses on stabilizing digital media artworks, providing emulated access for researchers, and exploring contemporary methods for exhibiting historical media artworks. As part of this project, the National Art Archive has selected the Mike Leggett "Burning the Interface" archive and the dLux Media Art archive as case studies. These archives feature a wide range of interactive media works stored on various outdated digital media carriers. This short presentation will showcase the EaaSi platform, demonstrating workflows and the emulation of digital interactive multimedia works from obsolete carriers.

BIO: Duncan is the Digital and Special Collections Archivist at the National Art Archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales. His career in the information profession began 15 years ago, a career change from a disability sector. Since then, Duncan has held various roles and contributed to numerous projects in the GLAMR sector. He has previously held role at National Archives of Australian (ACT) and the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies (AIATSIS). Duncan has a strong interest in both digital and physical collection management, as well as all aspects of data stewartship & curation, data governance, digital preservation, discovery & access.

Kerri Klumpp

Summary: Drawing Attention: Artists’ Books at Monash University Library. Special Collections libraries contain unique material, often not easily discoverable by search interfaces. This presentation will consider recent, current and future practices at Monash University Library Special Collections that aim to have our art related collections ‘seen’. It provides examples of how we have physically and digitally surfaced our art related collections for students and researchers. It also steps through the collaborative curation process for a forthcoming exhibition of artists’ books in 2025.

BIO: For the past 20+ years, I have worked across academic libraries, special collections and archives in Naarm/Melbourne and Meanjin/Brisbane. I am currently working at Monash University Library where you can find me accessioning, describing and preparing unpublished material in Special Collections for digitisation. My role also supports teaching and research initiatives by leading Object Based Learning sessions with items from Special Collections and co-curating exhibitions. Prior to this, I have worked at The University of Queensland Library, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The Victorian College of the Arts | University of Melbourne Library.

Monica Oppen

Summary: Making the private library public. Why collect? I ask this question and wonder if the reason I collect books by artists is for the same reasons that others might collect them. I don’t suppose I will ever know the answer! I could keep the books all to myself but I decided to make my private collection public. This decision has lead me to becoming an accidental librarian. In this short presentation I will delve into the rationale behind and the process and benefits of making my private collection of artist’s books open to the public. I will cover the haphazard beginnings of my collecting, why I began to collect these particular books, the growth of the collection and the need to catalogue the books and as well as set boundaries and limits to which books I collect. I will also touch on storage of the books, the library rooms and designing the website. This presentation will be illustrated with images of the space, as well as a diverse selection of books from the collection showing the breadth and uniqueness of this genre of books.

BIO: Monica Oppen is a practicing artist whose practice focuses on the book and printmaking media. She began making books in the mid 1980s as part of a TAFE certificate course (East Sydney Technical College) and the following bachelors degree in the visual arts (City Art Institute). She learned hand binding and worked part-time as a binder in Sydney, NSW Australia for several years. She collected the first books by artists at this time. By the mid 2000s she began to catalogue the growing collection. In 2007 she established the Library for the Artist Book (Bibliotheca Librorum apud Articficem) which includes a purpose built website. Since seriously committing to collecting she has delved into the genre internationally and historically. The Bibliotheca is the largest private collection in Australia. Engagement with collecting has exposed her to the huge range of work in the field.

Lea Simpson

Summary: NAS Library Artists Book Annual: making student work visible. In 2023 the National Art School Library launched the NAS Library Artists’ Book Annual (NASLABA), an acquisitive prize and exhibition for students across all disciplines. Curated by Printmaking and Drawing academics, Library staff and a guest judge each year, the NASLABA meaningfully contributes to collection development of an important teaching collection in the NAS Library, while simultaneously offering visibility and professional development to our student artists.

Artists’ books have long been included in requisite NAS courses in both Printmaking and Drawing. In 2022 NAS Library began an active (if modestly funded) collecting focus on artists’ books to support these units. This was coupled with direct engagement with the Drawing and Print Departments, with the Library hosting dozens of class groups for exploratory and object-based sessions with the collection. The NASLABA has concreted a strong link between this curricular engagement and our parallel collection development and programming in this arena. The NASLABA exhibition is held in the Library Stairwell Gallery, establishing a rare interdepartmental exhibition available to all stages of learning at NAS. This exhibition is held during both Grad and Post Grad exhibitions, drawing attention to our artists’ book artists - and the Library’s collections and programming - during our highest visitation period of the year.

BIO: Lea Simpson has worked in academic arts libraries and specialist visual collections both in Australia and abroad for over 20 years. She loves it. Lea is currently the Head Librarian of the National Art School Library, and Secretary of the ARLIS/ANZ National Executive. She has a Bachelor of Art Theory (University of New South Wales/UNSW) and a Master of Library and Information Science (University of California/UCLA)

Louise Anemaat

Summary: Collections and Memory: The Dunera collections at the State Library of NSW. The State Library’s current exhibition, Dunera. Stories of internment, tells the story of a little-known chapter in Australia history through the moving artworks created by those who lived through it. This paper considers the question of forced displacement through an extensive display of artwork produced in Australia’s internment camps during World War II. It considers the role of collecting institutions in safeguarding memories that make up identity; the risks in selecting memories deemed worthy of preservation; and the role of collecting institutions in recording, exhibiting and validating memories and why that remains so important in contemporary Australia.

BIO: Louise Anemaat is Executive Director, Library Services & Dixson Librarian, at the State Library of NSW. She is responsible for teams delivering core library activities across the collection life cycle for physical and digital collections including collection development; cataloguing, processing and metadata standards; reading room and reference services, interlibrary loan and document delivery; conservation and preservation activities; and curatorial activities. She is also Lead Curator of the Library’s current exhibition, Dunera. Stories of Internment.

Eric Riddler

Summary: Analogue ways of seeing: Revisiting the age of the lecture slide. In the age of the PowerPoint presentation, shared to screen during a Zoom meeting, the 35mm lecture slide may seem to be a quaint relic of a past age. Yet, as a record of past educational practice, the lecture slide stands as a monument to the continuing importance of visual communication, especially in the field of art history and practice. The National Art Archive collection provides unique insights into the processes behind the creation of educational slide kits, while the Art Gallery of New South Wales Julia Davis Slide Library collection reveals an eclectic approach to art education, going back to the 1940s, which, along with other sources, prove that opportunities still exist for the use of historic educational material.

BIO: Eric Riddler is an art historian and researcher who is the Visual Resources Librarian at the Art Gallery of New South Wales National Art Archive. He has worked on a number of exhibitions, publications and research projects about Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand artists, especially those working in the mid twentieth century.

The 2024 Arlis/ANZ conference BEING SEEN is an onsite conference hosted at Chau Chak Wing Museum (CCWM) and the Art Gallery of NSW (Meers Hall, Naala Badu building). The presentations will be streamed for delegates who are unable to attend in person. Workshops will not be stream.

Onsite

Onsite attendees will enjoy networking with colleagues at the conference and the dinner; catered morning teas and lunch (Thursdays only) and closing reception; guided tours of exhibitions and collections at CCWM and in-person workshops.

Visit this webpage for more information on the conference venues and getting around Sydney.

Online option

A live online registration option is available to accommodate delegates who are unable to attend in person.

Registrations open until the 15th November 2024

Welcome to Sydney

We are delighted to welcome you to Sydney for the 2024 Arlis/ANZ conference BEING SEEN. As one of the world’s most vibrant and cosmopolitan cities, Sydney offers a stunning backdrop of iconic landmarks, rich cultural experiences, and a thriving hub of innovation and creativity. Throughout the conference, you will have the opportunity to connect with delegates, peers and professionals in sphere of the arts and GLAMr sector.

In the spirit of reconciliation, the BEING SEEN conference committee acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which the conference will be held, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples joining us for this event. We honor their enduring connection to the land, waters, and culture that continue to enrich this nation.

We look forward to an inspiring and successful event in this beautiful city. We welcome to Sydney!

Conference venue and surrounds

The two-day conference is split between two venues. Day one will be held at the Chau Chak Wing Museum (CCWM), located on the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, opposite the Main Quadrangle and Fisher Library in the historic grounds of the University. The CCWM is the university museum of the University of Sydney, formed by the amalgamation of the Nicholson Museum, the Macleay Museum, and the University Art Collection.

Day two will take place at the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW), in the new Naala Badu building, the gallery's north building. The Art Gallery is located on the cusp of the Sydney CBD next to the Royal Botanic Gardens and The Domain. The award-winning Naala Badu, which means "seeing waters," is a series of light-filled pavilions and outdoor terraces that step down towards Sydney Harbour. The conference sessions on day two will be held in the Meers Hall (lower level 2).

Additionally, pre-conference and post-conference gatherings have been organized for enthusiastic delegates. The pre-conference gathering will be hosted by the National Art School (NAS) in Darlinghurst. The National Art School, located on the site of the former Darlinghurst Gaol, is the oldest independent fine arts institute in Australia. And the post-conference gathering will be held at The Library Bar located on the rooftop of the State Library of NSW.

Getting around - public transport

The public transport network in Sydney is reliable and provides a variety of ways to get around the city, Use the trip planner at transportnsw.info to plan your travel.

The Opal card is an easy, convenient way of paying for your travel on public transport in Sydney. It can be used on all public transport, including trains, ferries, buses and light rail. Opal cards can be obtained from train stations and the domestic and international airport, as well as many retailers across the city. For more information, visit opal.com.au. 

You can also pay with contactless-enabled American Express, Mastercard or Visa credit or debit cards or a linked device, by tapping on and tapping off at Opal readers. Contactless payments are available on all public transport in the Opal network and you will receive the same travel benefits of an Adult Opal card. 

• To NAS the buses are frequent and easy. From Central Station (Eddy Ave) catch the 311 or 440 up Oxford Street, get off at Taylor Square and walk down Forbes Street to NAS. By train it is a 10 minute walk from Kings Cross station or Museum Station, exit the station at Hyde Park (the corner of Liverpool and Elizabeth Street) and head up Oxford Street to NAS. Further information on the NAS website

• To CCWM the closest train station is Redfern Station. Information on getting to CCWM is accessible via their website.

• To AGNSW the bus 441 departs from the York Street side of Queen Victoria Building (Stand D) and drops off near the Art Gallery. For trains, St James and Martin Place stations are both about 10 minutes walk. More information from AGNSW website.

Making the most of your stay in sydney - here are some links !

• Check out what’s on at Sydney galleries and exhibitions

• Fancy a musical or some maybe some theatre

• Experience museums

• Stop in and have a bevvy in some of Sydney’s finest bars & pubs

• Check out the local attractions

Tim Jones

Summary: he website Find New Zealand Artists was launched in 2013 by project partners Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki along with seven other contributing libraries, it has become a standard reference source for biographical information about Aotearoa New Zealand artists. It is cited in other sources, is regularly updated, has embedded links to a range of other projects, and has been translated into te reo Māori. Created by art librarians primarily as an index to artist files held in New Zealand libraries, it was envisaged as a pointer to other sources of information and contains almost no primary research or visual material. The site itself is so simple that it costs practically nothing to run, and is found to be useful in ways unimagined in 2013. The tenth birthday of Find New Zealand Artists is a moment both to reflect on its success and to consider how it could be made better. How could it be integrated with other name authority schema? Or connected with collection or image databases? What other source material could it index? Could its scope be extended beyond visual artists to include musicians, dancers, architects or writers? Could its scope be extended geographically? How would any such developments be evaluated? Should a successful project be left alone, or are there opportunities waiting to be seized?

 In this presentation, Catherine Hammond and Tim Jones will consider some of these questions in detail.

BIO: Tim Jones is the librarian and archivist at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, the public art museum in Christchurch, New Zealand. He has been an active member of ARLIS-ANZ for over 20 years. He has presented at previous ARLIS-ANZ conferences, and elsewhere, usually on subjects related to managing information about art and artists in systematic and structured ways. He was a co-founder, with Catherine Hammond and others, of the website Find New Zealand Artists which he still jointly administers. He has overseen  the digitization of a large volume of New Zealand fine and applied art material and is passionate about making this material freely and widely available.

Martin Shub

Summary: It seems that my digital publications have found a lovely umbrella term in “Being Seen”. My work publishing Art Biographies and Art Prizes websites and associated publications is about surfacing, collating and publishing information about contemporary Australian artists and art prizes. There is an undeniably strong relationship between these two knowledge domains. Selection in art prizes provides a pathway to identifying active and high-performing artists in a way that other group exhibitions don’t manage. Did you know that in 2023 the artist Virginia Keft was a finalist in at least 14 prizes? Despite this many people still aren’t aware of her work or that the artist Lauren Starr won the biggest art prize in Australia in 2022 - $150,000. When your clients are looking for topical, current biographical information about Australian artists you could direct them to these sites.

BIO: Publisher Martin Shub’s Discovery Media has been on the forefront of documenting Australian art and artists since the early 1990s, publishing the Australian Visual Artists Database (AVAD), which became a standard reference in State and university library collections. AVAD included the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Visual Artists Database (NATSIVAD), which has been documenting indigenous artists’ careers throughout Australia for 30 years. Riding the early digital wave, Art Right Now was the first Australian multimedia CD-ROM profiling contemporary Australian artists, followed by OzBiogs, a web-based subscription database of Australian artists. More recently, Discovery Media has been profiling and tracking art prizes across Australia through the popular Art Prizes Planner website and iPhone/Android apps.

Kêyeele Lawler-Dormer & Ben Ong 

Summary: The National Art Archive at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) holds the largest collection of artists' archives in Australia. Since 1955, it has collected material from artists, commercial galleries, individuals, and other organisations. This paper discusses the methodology and decision-making involved in a small team digitisation project and highlights the benefits of focusing on female representation in Art Archives.  Completed in June 2024, the Women Artists Archives Project was a collaborative initiative by the Archive and AGNSW’s conservation team to enhance the visibility of female artists within the Archive Collection. Made possible through the generous support of Sally White OAM through the Conservation Benefactors program. This project focused on conserving, rehousing, and digitising artist sketchbooks and issues of Undergrowth magazine created by women. Items were selected based on their visual impact, historical importance, relevance to the exhibition program, potential to boost research and public engagement.  

The project required creative thinking and the provision of innovative solutions such as: photography set ups, adapting open-source book cradles for digitisation, tracking workflows with excel, and optimising data ingestion into the collection management system. These solutions allowed for the team to successfully treat and digitise 550 high-priority items across six archives making them further accessible to the public.   

BIO: Kêyeele completed a Master of Cultural Material Conservation at the University of Melbourne majoring in Paper Conservation, progressing from a background in Fine Arts and Art History. Following a career in Arts Administration in small galleries in New Zealand, Kêyeele has spent the past eight years working as a Paper and Book conservator, both privately and in institutions across New South Wales and The National Archives UK. Kêyeele has most recently worked across exhibitions and digitisation projects at the Art Gallery of NSW, with a key focus on the AGNSW Library and the National Art Archives.  

BIO:Completing his Diploma of Photography in 2004 Ben has been working as a professional photographer full time since 2003. Initially establishing himself in Fine Art and Fashion, and later to settle as Head Technician under Warren Macris of High Res Digital Imaging for 14 years – widely regarded as Australia’s most recognised fine art reproduction and restoration house. With a specialisation in film drum scanning and fluid mounting as well as art reproduction, Ben has also taught Photoshop and Colour Management at UTS. He later would go on to help establish the setup of one of Sydney’s largest and last remaining film labs, before settling at AGNSW as a Digitisation Photographer. 

Simon Welsh

Workshop summary: Collage is made up of magazine and newspaper clippings, discarded books, packaging, coloured or handmade papers, portions of other artworks or texts, photographs and found objects. Perfect mediums when working in the library industry. In this Being Seen workshop we will explore contemporary collage styles and create unique self portrait pieces that represent your style . The classes will be lead by experienced collage artist and Waverley Librarian Simon Welsh, no experience is necessary.  Just bring you creativity. All collage materials are provided. 

BIO: Born in Sydney, Simon Welsh is a collage artist, graphic designer and librarian. Welsh explores the unlimited potential of the figurative genre, exploring shape, movement, gender and sexuality. Influenced by the Masters, sculpture and the Renaissance, he reinterprets traditional mediums through a modern queer lens or Queerlage. Welsh’s work is often exploratory and created from a wide range of materials, much of his work is by chance and play and allows the pieces to direct a new narrative. Simon’s work has been shown domestically and internationally, at the Kaos Int Festival of Collage, a finalist at Midsummer, Fisher’s Ghost, The Lake Mac, Gosford, Blacktown, BAS, and the Nillumbik and is a member of the Sydney Collage society. He has been teaching collage for 6 years now and has worked in the public library industry for 12 years.

Duncan McColl

Summary: “Show me again...” Preserving, rediscovering and reviving the almost forgotten. The Art Gallery of New South Wales is a project partner in the Archiving Australian Media Arts (AAMA), an Australian Research Council LIEF-funded initiative led by Swinburne University of Technology. The project is trialing the EaaSi (Emulation as a Service Infrastructure) platform, originally developed by Yale University, which allows access to digital resources through preserved software. The project focuses on stabilizing digital media artworks, providing emulated access for researchers, and exploring contemporary methods for exhibiting historical media artworks. As part of this project, the National Art Archive has selected the Mike Leggett "Burning the Interface" archive and the dLux Media Art archive as case studies. These archives feature a wide range of interactive media works stored on various outdated digital media carriers. This short presentation will showcase the EaaSi platform, demonstrating workflows and the emulation of digital interactive multimedia works from obsolete carriers.

BIO: Duncan is the Digital and Special Collections Archivist at the National Art Archive, Art Gallery of New South Wales. His career in the information profession began 15 years ago, a career change from a disability sector. Since then, Duncan has held various roles and contributed to numerous projects in the GLAMR sector. He has previously held role at National Archives of Australian (ACT) and the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies (AIATSIS). Duncan has a strong interest in both digital and physical collection management, as well as all aspects of data stewartship & curation, data governance, digital preservation, discovery & access.