About

Methodology

The focus of Countess.Report data collection is the production of our quadannrial Reports where the primary purpose is to quantify the representation of women and non-binary artists in exhibitions and public collections at museums and galleries across Australia over a twelve month period.  

We access this information from the public websites and annual reports of museum and galleries, and in the case of State Museums and Galleries we directly request the data. The information Countess.Report are collating is familiar to us all on museum wall labels - where both the artworks history and the artists identity are communicated didactically.

Each line of data we collect represents each artist exhibited in a specific organisation, in a specific exhibition, at a specific time.  Gender is then identified through the named artists professional website and/or gallery or media.  Organisational structures surrounding the exhibition of the artists work such as Directors, Boards and Curators names and gender are also recorded.  In some data sets we extend our research to obtain information on the age and educational qualifications of artists if  available on their personal and/or gallery website. 

Countess.Report collate this data so that similarities and differences can be seen between and across organisations, locations, genders, ages, and education. 

Names are always de-identified when publishing the aggregated data but are recorded to maintain accuracy and provide meaningful robust context to the data. Our data is stored in password protected folders.

We record the information into excell spreadsheets using the following categories:

︎︎︎Organisations Name

Name of the museum; gallery; media; event.

︎︎︎State/Territory

Organisations state location reflect state based funding boundaries.

︎︎︎Regional/Metro

Organisations regional or metro location reflect various funding budgets and priorities.

︎︎︎Org Category 

︎︎︎State Museum and Galleries 
︎︎︎Major Public/Private Museums
︎︎︎Public Regional Galleries 
︎︎︎University Galleries
︎︎︎Commercial Galleries
︎︎︎Contemporary Art Spaces
︎︎︎Artist Run Galleries
︎︎︎Media

︎︎︎Exhibition Title

︎︎︎Exhibition Type

︎︎︎Solo Exhibition
︎︎︎Group Exhibition
︎︎︎Biennale
︎︎︎Triennale
︎︎︎Art Prize

︎︎︎Role 

︎︎︎Exhibited Artist
︎︎︎Curator
︎︎︎Gallery Director
︎︎︎Represented Artist
︎︎︎Writer
︎︎︎Editor
︎︎︎Chairperson
︎︎︎Board Member
︎︎︎CEO 
︎︎︎Unknown

︎︎︎Name 

Names are always de-identified when publishing the aggregated data but are recorded to maintain accuracy and meaningful context. Our data is stored securely in password protected folders.

︎︎︎Gender

︎︎︎Collaboration
︎︎︎ Non-Binary
︎︎︎ Female
︎︎︎ Male 

︎︎︎Year of Birth 

When an artists work is collected or exhibited by a public instiution this information is displayed on an exhibition wall label and registration data. We collect this additional information to examine how prescriptive age is to established career pathways.

︎︎︎Highest Education 

We collect this additional information to examine and test the connections between educational insitutions legitimating an artists practice and career pathways.

Collaborators

The Countess.Report is a collaborative artist-run project led by Amy Prcevich, Elvis Richardson, Miranda Samuels and Shevaun Wright.

Shevaun Wright is a lawyer and artist engaged in the growing field of legal aesthetics. Her art practice is interdisciplinary and research based, utilizing the contractual medium and the notion of the ‘social contract,’ as well as re-contextualized dialogues as a tool for engaging in institutional legal and artistic critique. Informed by her Aboriginal heritage, she aims to extrapolate feminist and post-colonial critiques of the law and art as a means to access and reveal similarities in their discursive practices. She is licensed as a lawyer in Australia and California. She is now working with Dr Terri Janke, specialising in Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property matters, AI and assisting Indigenous businesses to thrive. She has undertaken numerous residencies, including the Whitney Independent Study Program (Studio) and the Banff International Curatorial Institute and will be Creative Australia’s resident artist at ACME East London studios in June. She has masters degrees in art and law including a Master of Fine Arts from UCLA’s Interdisciplinary Studio program.

Miranda Samuels is an educator, researcher, and artist based in New York. She is a Critic at the Yale School of Art in the Painting and Drawing Department, Head Researcher at legacy stewardship firm Davila-Villa & Stothart, and Assistant Director at the Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program. She has worked in museum education and public engagement at various Australian art galleries. As a Fulbright Scholar Miranda completed postgraduate studies at the New School for Social Research focusing on aesthetics and political philosophy (2021), and has a degree in fine arts from UNSW Art and Design (2014).

Amy Prcevich interrogates narratives of social and public space, time, the office, language and labour – specifically the nature and value of artists’ labour. Her employment in galleries and museums and engagement with artist communities informs her conceptual, spatial and text-based practice. Amy recently completed a Master of Fine Arts at University of New South Wales, entitled Workaround. Informed by her experience as artist-as-worker this research resulted in a new video work entitled Workaround (2023) which draws on office tropes and the conventions of the instructional video to present a series of strategies used to claim time and space for art making in the context of the office.

Amy has been the recipient of several grants and residencies including Test Sites, Public Art Project Development Grant from the City of Melbourne and Parramatta Artist Studios. Amy has exhibited at The Substation, Arts House Meat Market, Arts House North Melbourne, True Estate, First Site Gallery (VIC) and Wellington Street Projects, PARI and Firstdraft (NSW). She is lead curator for Language Exchange (working title) at Fairfield City Museum and Gallery (NSW) in 2024. This exhibition explores the feelings of loss and revival associated with losing and regaining a connection to a heritage language.

Elvis Richardson is a Melbourne based artist whose collecting based practice curates personalised objects and imagery extracted from public sources and re-constructed to comment on taste, class, the sublime and her own agency as an artist when also trapped in an aspirational exposure-based system of certain economic precarity. Richardson’s objects and images disrupt the everyday commodification’s of lifestyle to satirically expose the promises, disappointments and contradictions that we all live with. 

Dr Elvis Richardson completed a BFA at UNSW 1992, MA UNSW 1996, MFA Columbia University in New York 2002, and PhD Deakin University 2019.  Elvis was awarded the Samstag Internaional Visual Art Fellowship in 2000, and project grants from the Australia Council in 2015 and 2018, and Creative Victoria 2018. Richardson has been an active member of a number of artist run initiatives including First Draft (96/97), Elastic (99/00), Ocular Lab (08/10) DEATH BE KIND (2010/12) and True Estate (2017/18).

Melinda Rackham writes on issues that matter; exploring online intimacy in early web sites and Virtual Reality worlds, and founding the widely re-published critical media arts forum -empyre- [2002-2022].  Her practice introduces diverse and experimental art, cultures and ideas to new audiences through organisations and institutions such as ACMI, ANAT, The Royal Institution of Australia, UniSA, RMIT, MCA, NGA, Rhizome, ISEA and Ars Electronica. Recent publications include the substantial monograph Catherine Truman - Touching Distance [2016]; poetic co-authored ADOPTED anthology [2018]; an essay series for cyberfeminist icons VNS Matrix [2019]; the Instagram performative parody #remakemistresses [2020]; and now CoUNTess: Spoiling Illusions Since 2008 [2023].

Brigid Hansen is a media and arts professional with a strong interest in communications and contemporary culture. She has worked with organisations as La Trobe Art Institute, ACCA, Blindside, 3RRR and the National Gallery of Victoria. 

Annalise Bosnjak, Eloise Breskvar, Nikita Holcombe, Niki Koutouzis, Safari Lee, Lauren May, Alice Pengilley, Amy Prcevich, Elvis Richardson, Miranda Samuels, Sarah Thomson, Catherine Woolley, Lauren Wraight.

Mark Hislop, Sadie Chandler, Danielle Hakim, Virginia Fraser and Amy-Noel Van Eymeren

John Cruthers, Dr. Eva Cox AO, Dr. Jacqueline Milner, Tamara Winikoff OAM, and Amanda Rowell

Supporters

The Countess.Report gratefully acknowledges the siginificant financial support of the following organisations

Selected Media

The Countess Report findings have been reported on by The Arts Show, (ABC RN), The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, a non-exhaustive list of coverage following our most recent report in 2019 is below.

• Morris, L. (2019) Women Artists win parity but report shows there’s still more work to do, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 October 2019 
  

• The Arts Show (2019), The Countess Report shows gains and losses in equal gender representation, 30 October 2019 
  

• Editorial, Art's gender imbalance affects way we see the world, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 October 2019
  

• Morris, L NGA first major institution to commit to gender parity in artistic program, Canberra Times, 30 October 2019 
  

• Anotolitis, E New Countess Report: Independent sectors lead the visual arts in gender equality, while state institutions fall behind National Association of Visual Arts, 30 October 2019