Prof Esther Anatolitis is one of Australia’s foremost cultural policy and practice leaders. Her impactful professional record as an advocate and educator spans all artforms and practice modes.
Esther has held leadership positions at the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters’ Council, Express Media, the Emerging Writers’ Festival (of which she was a founder), SBS Radio Melbourne, Craft Victoria, SYN Media, Melbourne Fringe, Regional Arts Victoria and the National Association for the Visual Arts. Her past board and chair roles include the Arts Industry Council of Victoria, ACMI, Contemporary Arts Precincts, Elbow Room, the National Advocates for Arts Education, the National Gallery of Australia and Regional Arts Australia.
With an education background in arts, media, architecture and the humanities, Esther has taught design studios, courses and lectures at universities across Australia, including an annual guest presentation in the NIDA MFA Cultural Leadership program. After a formative year collaborating on an international architectural project at the Bauhaus as the DAAD Künstlerprogramm Resident, Esther developed a pedagogical philosophy grounded in cross-disciplinary practice and tactical modes of engagement. Emerging from this work, her long-term curatorial focus Frameworks for Practice fosters critical reflection among large groups of artists gathered in unconventional spaces.
A prolific writer and commentator, Esther’s work has featured in university curricula across many disciplines and is collected at estheranatolitis.net. Esther is the author of Place, Practice, Politics (2021) and When Australia Became a Republic (2025), editor of Meanjin (2022-2025) and Essays that Changed Australia (2024), co-editor of Contretemps (2006-2008) and 100 Years of Australian Songwriting (2026), former arts and cultural policy columnist for Meanjin and Arts Hub, and writer of hundreds of newspaper and journal articles, exhibition catalogue essays, and book chapters including in Permanent Recession (2019), The Relationship is the Project (2019, 2024), The Routledge Companion to Creativity in the Built Environment (2024), Visual Arts Work (2025) and BVN100 (2026). Her next book Who’s Afraid of Australia’s Artists? will be published by Upswell in late 2027.
Esther’s arts and cultural policy work has been engaged by all levels of government across Australia: her strategic practice Test Pattern focuses on creative policy and places, and she has served numerous policy committees. A leader in cross-sector alliance-building, Esther created Australia’s first comprehensive set of arts advocacy tools and training programs, adopted by peak bodies across the industry and building significant capacity. Globally Esther has represented the Australian cultural policy perspective at European, British and North American forums including the IFACCA World Summit, where she chaired the panel on advocacy best practice. Esther is a member of the National Museum of Australia Governing Council and Adjunct Industry Professor at RMIT School of Art.
Image credit: Maja Baska