Venice Biennale 2026
Acclaimed artist, Khaled Sabsabi, and curator, Michael Dagostino, are the artistic team for the Australia Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition will run from 9 May to 22 November 2026.
About the artist
Khaled Sabsabi is an acclaimed award-winning multidisciplinary artist whose work centres on social justice, reflecting his experiences after migrating from Lebanon in 1976 to escape civil war. For more than 35 years, Sabsabi’s artistic process involves working across art mediums, geographical borders and with communities in the Australian and international context. Early involvement in Western Sydney’s hip-hop scene alongside Arabic, Aboriginal, and Pacific Islander communities helped establish social advocacy as the core of his process and practice. Khaled sees art as an effective tool to communicate and converse with people, through a familiar language, creating immersive and engaging experiences. Through his art, Sabsabi explores human collectiveness and question’s identity politics and ideology.
Sabsabi was awarded an Australia Council for the Arts CCD fellowship in 2001, Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship 2010, 60th Blake Prize 2011, MCG Basil Sellers fellowship 2014, Fishers Ghost Prize 2014, Western Sydney ARTS NSW Fellowship 2015, Sharjah Art Programme Prize 2016, International Council of Museums' and Heritage Awards, Video Art Prize 2016, University of NSW Annual Alumni Award ‘Art and Culture’ 2019, Copyright Agency Cultural Fund Visual Arts Fellowship 2020, Creative Australia ‘Annual Visual Arts Award’ 2023 and the Mordant Family and Creative Australia American Academy Rome Affiliated Fellowship 2024.
He is represented by Milani Gallery, Brisbane and has produced more than 65 major mixed media and installation-based works to date, exhibiting in over 90 solo and group art exhibitions in Australia and abroad. Khaled also participated in the 5th Marrakech Biennale, 18th Biennale of Sydney and the 21st Biennale of Sydney, 9th Shanghai Biennale, Sharjah Biennial 11, 1st Yinchuan Biennale, 3rd Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art 2018 and 2024.
About the curator
Michael Dagostino is the Director of the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney. As a new museum, it unites the university’s diverse collections into a multidisciplinary institution dedicated to education and community engagement.
As founding director of Parramatta Artists Studios, he established a key platform for emerging artists. In 2011, he became Director of Campbelltown Arts Centre, where he continued an artist-driven program supporting local, national, and international collaborations. Notable projects include With Secrecy and Despatch (2016), co-curated with Tess Allas and David Garneau, exploring colonial impacts through the Appin Massacre, and Another Day in Paradise (2017), showcasing Myuran Sukumaran’s work co-curated by Ben Quilty.
Michael curated Lisa Reihana’s Cinemania (2018) and commissioned the Australian First Nations component of her "In Pursuit of Venus [Infected]" for the New Zealand Pavillion at the Venice Biennale (2017). A Hope and A Promise (2021), co-curated by Adam Porter and Matt Cox, surveyed Khaled Sabsabi’s 30-year practice held at the Art Gallery of NSW and Campbelltown Arts Centre.
Michael has received Imagine Awards and ICOM awards for institutional excellence. His board memberships include Sydney Dance Company, FBi Radio, Accessible Arts, and the Sydney Writers’ Festival, alongside advisory roles for the NSW Government. He remains committed to advancing museums' role in fostering access, equity and authorship.
