CONTEMPORARY ART IN A TIME OF CRISIS
In an age of cultural anxiety and collapsing attention spans, art can easily be sidelined. But what if it does more essential work than we realise? This discussion between Suzanne Cotter and Benjamin Law explores whether contemporary art is simply a niche-interest, or a vital antidote to the ills of disconnection. When it comes to repairing our crumbling social cohesion, can and should art do more of the heavy lifting? Or is it retreating into irrelevance at exactly the moment it is needed most?
Location:
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
Tallawoladah, Gadigal Country
140 George Street
The Rocks
Sydney NSW 2000
Suzanne Cotter
Suzanne Cotter is a leading curator and scholar of contemporary art. Currently Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Previously Director of the Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Portugal, she has held senior curatorial positions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hayward Gallery, London and Modern Art Oxford. A board member of CIMAM between 2017 and 2025, she is also on Board member of Mophradat, supporting artists from the Arab world, she he has been awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government and equivalent honours from Luxembourg and Italy.
Benjamin Law
Benjamin Law is an Australian writer and broadcaster. He is the author of The Family Law (2010), Gaysia (2013), the Quarterly Essay Moral Panic 101 (2017) and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019). An AWGIE Award-winning screenwriter and playwright, he is co-executive producer and co-writer of the Netflix comedy-drama Wellmania (2023), playwright of Melbourne Theatre Company’s Torch the Place (2020) and Dying: A Memoir (2025), and creator of the award-winning SBS series The Family Law (2016–2019). As a broadcaster, he has hosted ABC TV documentary Waltzing the Dragon and co-hosted ABC Radio’s Stop Everything.
Image credit: Esther Linder
We acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation - the custodians of the country on which we meet - and acknowledge their Elders, past and present.
The views and opinions expressed by the Festival participants are not necessarily the views of The Ethics Centre and our partners.