The American Australian Association invites you to join 2024 Beverley Art Writers Grant Recipient Aruna D’Souza as she recounts her visit to Australia in 2024. While in Australia, D’Souza met with First Nations artists, curators, and writers, learning not only about Indigenous arts but also the collective structures that artists have built to support themselves and their creative communities. She interviewed Archie Moore and members of the team that organized the Australia Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, explored Australia’s food culture, and was bowled over by its flora and fauna.

Lauren O’Neill-Butler is a New York-based writer, editor, and educator. Her books include The War of Art: A History of Artists’ Protest in America (Verso, 2025) and Let’s Have a Talk: Conversations with Women on Art and Culture (Karma, 2021). In 2020 she received a Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant and in 2023 she received the Beverley Art Writers Travel Grant.