Installation image 'Time and Tide' (2017) by Mic and Tim Gruchy. Exhibition 'Dissolving Worlds' (2023) Griffith University Art Museum, 6 April to 3 June 2023.
Griffith University Art Museum’s future is secure
The University will not be closing the Griffith University Art Museum (GUAM).
Over the past twelve-month period, we have conducted an internal and external review of GUAM in light of the response to the 2023 consultation process around the potential closure of GUAM and its replacement with elements of the Griffith Film School.
This productive process has provided several recommendations and key findings with the aim to strengthen and enhance GUAM’s reputation and position as one of Australia’s significant university art museums, which we will now implement.
We are grateful to those who engaged so constructively in this process. It has been gratifying to hear the high regard in which GUAM is held in the community, and its strength in producing cultural research which it disseminates through exhibitions, touring, publishing, symposia and events, as well as its collection. In particular, GUAM’s work with First Nations artists is one of its greatest strengths and achievements.
The review has also found that university art museums play a critical role in the art ecology of Australia, occupying a space between state galleries/museums, contemporary art spaces, commercial galleries, and artist-run studios. They support visual arts practitioners at all stages of their careers and contextualise their work intellectually and historically by connecting them with university communities and beyond. Through their dedication to research and education, university art museums are places of experiment and challenge.