Parallax: Art criticism and the 2026 Biennale of Sydney

Dee Jefferson is an editor, journalist and critic with two decades experience covering culture, previously as national arts editor for the ABC and Time Out, and as a culture reporter for Guardian Australia. 

Tai Mitsuji is an art historian, critic, and PhD candidate (ABD) in the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. His research traces visual representations of forced migration from the nineteenth century to the present, with a particular focus on how images shape—and sometimes unsettle—ideas of identity and displacement. He recently returned to Australia after a year of research in Paris, following a year at the Harvard Art Museums, where he worked on two major exhibitions: The Solomon Collection: Dürer to Degas and Beyond and Edvard Munch: Technically Speaking. His work has been recognised with the 2024 Bowdoin Prize and the 2024–25 Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship, as well as the Marshall Field V. Fellowship and Frank Knox Fellowship. Alongside his academic work, he has written on contemporary art for publications including ArtReview, Artist Profile, The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, and The Sydney Morning Herald. 

Neha Kale is a widely-published writer of criticism, journalism, essay and nonfiction. Her first book, Foreign Return: On Art and Inhabitation is out in 2026 with NewSouth. Kale’s writing, which focuses on art, culture and society, has featured in many Australian and international publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, The Sydney Morning Herald, SBS, ArtReview, Vogue, ABC and more. She was part of a team nominated for a midyear Walkley, has been recognised twice in the Ann Moyal Fellowship for Nonfiction and has won a Faber Scholarship. She is the former editor of VAULT and current editor-at-large at Art Guide. 

Photo: Angie Contini.

Sophia Cai 蔡晨昕 is a curator and writer based in Kamberri/Canberra, Australia. Sophia’s ongoing research interests include Asian art histories, the intersections between contemporary art and craft, and building communities of practice rooted in feminist and anti-racist work. Sophia is the current Artistic Director + CEO of Canberra Contemporary, one of Australia’s leading contemporary art organisations, and the Deputy Chair of NAVA, a peak advocacy body for Australia’s contemporary arts sector, while maintaining an independent writing and curatorial practice. Sophia’s writing on art and culture has been widely published in international and national publications including The Guardian, Hyperallergic, Frieze, Artforum, Overland, Liminal, Runway Journal, Un Extended, Peril Magazine, Journal for Australian Ceramics, Art Almanac, Artist Profile, Art Guide Australia, and Art Collector Magazine. Her first book with Smith Street Books, Clayful, was published in September 2024, and her forthcoming book Loop, Hook, Loom, will be released worldwide on 5 May 2026.

Professor of Indigenous Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Sydney, Daniel Browning is Bundjalung and Kullilli writer, journalist and radio broadcaster. In a 30-year media career with Australia’s national broadcaster, Daniel read news for youth network triple j, presented and produced curated international award-winning programs on Indigenous art and culture every week for 15 years on Awaye! and established Word Up, a shortform podcast on the revival of Indigenous languages. The former Editor Indigenous Radio at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Daniel also hosted The Art Show from 2021 until 2025. In 2010 he was appointed guest editor of a specialist Indigenous issue of the contemporary art journal Artlink, and was invited back to edit four subsequent issues of what became the annual Artlink Indigenous. His first book, Close to the Subject: Selected Works, which catalogues his freelance writing on the arts, as well as poetry, memoir and his first play, won the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. In the same year Daniel was also the recipient of the Indigenous Writing Prize, a category of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. A finalist in the June Andrews Prize for Arts Journalism in 2024, he jointly won the Walkley Foundation’s inaugural Arts Journalism and Arts Criticism Prize in 2025 with ABC colleagues Rudi Bremer and Teresa Tan. His writing on contemporary Indigenous art has been published widely both nationally and internationally in ArtReview, Art Basel, Gradhiva, E-flux, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, Overland, The Guardian, The Age, Afrikadaa, Harper’s Bazaar, Conde Nast Traveler and the precursor of Blue Art Journal, Art Monthly. His critical essays have been published in magazines and exhibition catalogues for state and national galleries and in monographs including the latest, Tony Albert’s Not A Souvenir, published by Thames and Hudson.

Nick Croggon is an art historian, writer and editor. He teaches art history at the University of Sydney, and is the Events and Programs Officer at the Power Institute. He is one of the editors of Memo Review.