Australia’s Largest Arts Festival to Open With Wave of Anti-Israel Artists, Led by Controversial Creative Director

The 25th edition of the Sydney Biennale, Australia’s largest arts festival, opens to the public on Saturday and will feature a slew of artists with anti-Israel views similar to those expressed by the festival’s artistic director, Emirati princess and curator Hoor Al-Qasimi.

The 25th Biennale of Sydney, which will take place from March 14-June 14 across multiple venues, receives taxpayer funding and support from the federal government of Australia, the state government of New South Wales, and the City of Sydney. However, several of the festival’s other partners and sponsors may be problematic for supporters of Israel.

Qatar Museums and Rubaiya Qatar, a new nationwide contemporary art quadrennial that will debut in November 2026, are the festival’s “major strategic” sponsors, according to the event’s website. Qatar has a long history of aligning itself with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, providing a home for the senior leaders of both organizations.

Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are both internationally designated terrorist organizations. In the US, Hamas has carried the label for years, and the Trump administration has, in recent months, proscribed branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Africa and the Middle East.

The festival’s “major partners” include the global property developer Arada, co-founded by Al-Qasimi’s brother-in-law, Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi. When the partnership was announced in November 2025, it caused significant concern among the Jewish community. Another partner of the festival, the Barjeel Art Foundation, is controlled by the princess’s family.

“There were grave concerns that the appointment of Hoor Al Qasimi would result in one of our flagship cultural institutions becoming a tool of ideology and exclusion,” Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said last year, as cited by The Australian Financial Review. “The announcement that Al Qasimi’s family is now financially sponsoring the festival increases those concerns significantly, given that the family has a record of villainizing Israelis and calling for their boycott. The immense creative and financial power the family now exerts over the festival is alarming and risks undermining the spirit of the festival.”

Al Qasimi is the daughter of the ruler of Sharjah, one of seven emirates that comprise the United Arab Emirates. She is also the founder, president, and director of the Sharjah Art Foundation, an independent public arts organization in the UAE. She has a history of making anti-Israel comments and declaring “Free Palestine.”

When she was the artistic director of Japan’s Aichi Triennale in 2025, she said, “I didn’t imagine we would be witnessing a genocide live-streamed through our phones … this ongoing violence that can no longer be ignored … we all live under the same sky and none of us are free until all of us are free.” She also talked about “ongoing ethnic cleansing, and genocides.”

In October 2023, shortly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel, she signed an open letter that voiced support for “Palestinian liberation.” The same open letter called for an end to Israel’s “human rights violations and war crimes” and “escalating genocide” in the “occupied and besieged Gaza Strip.” It further talked about “oppression,” “occupation,” and the “collective punishment of Gaza civilians,” but made no mention of the deadly rampage on Oct. 7 in which Hamas-led terrorists killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnaped 251 hostages.

Al Qasimi father also reportedly once said that “the Zionist presence in Palestine is a cancerous growth within the heart of the Arab nation.” Sheikha Jawaher Bint Mohammed Al Qasimi additionally “criticized the UAE’s cooperation with Israel in the education field,” according to The Middle East Monitor.

The Australian Financial Review reported that several donors and sponsors withdrew their support from the 2026 Sydney Biennale in response to Al Qasimi’s appointment. Al Qasimi’s decision to pick mostly pro-Palestinian artists for the Sydney Biennale also prompted the Carla Zampatti Foundation to withdraw funding for the festival, according to The Australian. In January 2026, Sydney Biennale ambassador Bhenji Ra cut ties with the festival after she faced criticism from the Jewish community over social media posts, including one message she shared that said, “Genocidal death cults do not have the right to exist.”

THE ARTISTS

The theme for this year’s Sydney Biennale is “Rememory,” a term adopted from Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1987 novel Beloved to describe “how we become subjects and storytellers of our collective present through events of the past.”

Out of the 83 artists and collections from 37 countries being featured in the 25th Sydney Biennale, more than half are Arab and Muslim and no Israeli artists are included the lineup. The only Jewish talent participating is New York-based Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz, who has publicly made anti-Israel comments. In 2017, Rakowitz described his art as a form of “sumud,” an Arabic term meaning resilience, to “not allow Zionism to loot everything from the imagination, to keep alive the reality of what the Middle East was like before.”

French-Lebanese artist, DJ, and embroiderer Nasri Sayegh is also featured in this year’s Biennale, and he previously posted on social media that “Jewish supremacy is a disease.”

Richard Bell, an Australian artist showcasing his work in the festival, posted content on social media that has accused Israel of “genocide” in Gaza and been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an Instagram Story on Wednesday, he shared a video from Middle East Eye of an economics professor accusing Israel and the United States of a “mass murder of civilians” in Iran, and indiscriminately “carpet bombing Tehran.”

In August 2025, Bell shared a message on Instagram that said in part, “colonial societies target children because they want to take away the future … it is happening in Gaza, where children are being starved to death.” He previously created a large painting in the shape and colors of the Palestinian flag and the piece was titled “From the River to the Sea,” a slogan that is widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of Israel and for it to be replaced with “Palestine.”

Aysenur Kara is an “emerging Turkish artist” featured in this year’s Sydney Biennale who “aims to use her material conceptions to platform those facing genocide in Gaza right now,” according to a description provided on the festival’s website. The festival additionally said that another one of its presenters, Palestinian artist Khalil Rabah, uses his work “to articulate the very real situation of occupation experienced by Palestinians.”

A series of photographs by Iranian photographer Hoda Afsha being featured in the Sydney Biennale depicts indigenous children who had been in the juvenile justice system and was inspired by the fate of children during the “genocide in Palestine.” In late October 2023 – the same month as the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel – the award-winning Melbourne-based photographer posted on Instagram that she wants “Zionists out of our cultural spaces.”

Palestinian-Australian artist Feras Shaheen will put on the dance performance “Blocked Duwar” at the Campbelltown Arts Centre as part of the 2026 Sydney Biennale. In September 2025, the Tasmanian-based artist compared Jewish businessmen to Nazis in a social media post. He uploaded a photo that said, “Treat your local Zionist like you treat your local Nazi: Equality.” The message was featured over images of neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell, and Jewish arts philanthropist John Gandel and former Biennale donor and board member Morry Schwartz.

Schwartz responded to Shaheen’s social media post in an open letter last year to Kate Mills, chairman of the Biennale of Sydney. “I’m sure you’ll agree with me that a line has been crossed,” Schwartz wrote. “To equate John Gandel and me with Nazis is shocking. The Biennale will not survive this if you don’t act immediately.”

The offensive social media post has not been taken down by Shaheen.

Schwartz told The Australian Financial Review Magazine he had withdrawn his support for the Sydney Biennale, worried that its artistic director might turn the event into a “hate-Israel jamboree.”

Jewish leaders were given the opportunity to preview the Biennale of Sydney but declined the offer after being frustrated that the festival’s senior figures took no action against “objectionable” social media posts by artists included in the event, The Daily Telegraph reported this week.