The Critics Report

Rounding up the year’s most consequential events, four seasoned critics deliver a live report on the state of play in the arts and culture.

2025 has certainly been an eventful year in the arts and culture. Australia’s representative at the Venice Biennale was withdrawn and then reappointed. The country’s second oldest literary journal, Meanjin, was shuttered, while Southerly, its oldest, has just been rebooted. Here and across the world, artists and writers have had to contend with the institutional encouragement and enforcement of self-censorship, while the unauthorised use of copyrighted material to train AI platforms threatens to devalue work that is already under-remunerated. 

What role do critics have to play in this increasingly precarious environment? How does our critical culture help advocate for the importance and independence of creative work? Join the Sydney Review of Books Editors and their special guests — Roanna Gonsalves (Southerly), Nick Croggon (Memo Review) and Daniel Browning (University of Sydney, formerly ABC RN) — for a round-up of the year’s most consequential events in the arts and culture, and an enlivening discussion about the state of critical play in Australia. 
Presented by Sydney Review of Books.