2025 Betty Churcher AO Memorial Oration
Judy Chicago, 2023. Photograph © Donald Woodman/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Free, bookings essential
Duration: 90 mins
To mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations International Women's Year (IWY) the 2025 Betty Churcher AO Memorial Oration celebrates diverse voices and the contributions of artists internationally.
Join us for an exclusive conversation between ground-breaking feminist artist Judy Chicago and award-winning author and art historian Katy Hessel followed by a panel discussion with leading Australian artists Alison Alder, Marie Hagerty, Raquel Ormella and r e a, hosted by Tracy Cooper-Lavery, Head, Art Across Australia and Chair of the National Gallery’s Gender Equity Action Group.
Filmed across two continents, the conversation between Chicago and Hessel delves into Chicago’s experiences as a woman artist from the 1960s to today and how gender has shaped her art and career.
On stage at the National Gallery, the panellists will discuss their own experiences in the arts and feminist movements in Australia and reflect on their various contributions as artists, educators, activists, advocates and community organisers.
Together these conversations highlight the role of institutions in addressing gender inequality and what still needs to be done in the continuing fight for gender equality in the arts.
Betty Churcher AO (1931–2015) was a leading Australian arts educator and administrator. During her esteemed career, Betty Churcher was the first woman to lead an Australian tertiary education centre as Dean of the School of Art and Design at Phillip Institute of Technology in Melbourne (1982–1987), first woman to lead a state gallery as Director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia (1987–1990) and first and only woman Director of the National Gallery (1990–1997).
Established in 2022 as part of the National Gallery’s Gender Equity Action Plan, the Betty Churcher AO Memorial Oration is a major annual event featuring leading women in the arts who inspire creativity, inclusivity, engagement and learning.
Tickets
Onsite Ticket
The main doors will open at 5.15pm and there will be pop up bar where you can purchase a drink before the event starts at 6pm.
Online Ticket
Online bookings close at 2pm on the day of the event. Ticket holders will receive a link via email to access the livestream by 4pm on the day of the event. Please contact the Gallery on +61 2 6240 6411 or information@nga.gov.au if you do not receive your viewing link.
speakers

Alison Alder, 2024. Photograph courtesy of the artist.
Alison Alder
Alison Alder's work blurs the line between studio, community and social/political art practice. She has worked within community groups, research institutions and Indigenous organisations. Her research is focused on empowering communities through the visualisation of common social aims and under-represented histories.
Alison’s work is held in major Australian public and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia, most State galleries, numerous regional galleries, the Australian War Memorial, National Portrait Gallery, Australian Parliament House Art Collection and the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art. In the USA her work is held in the collections of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, the Interference Archive and the New York Public Library’s Print Collection.
Alison has received several awards and commissions including, most recently, being appointed as artist-in-residence at the Australian Parliament House, which resulted in a series of 12 screen prints entitled I AM A NEW WOMAN.
Alison is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University, School of Art and Design and works full-time in her studio in regional Australia.
Judy Chicago, 2023. Photograph © Donald Woodman/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces, which examine the role of women in history and culture. During the 1970s, Chicago founded the first feminist art program in the United States at California State University, Fresno, which bolstered the feminist art and art education movement during the 1970s. She is a prolific writer, having written sixteen books. Chicago's multi-media practice incorporates painting, needlework, glass, ceramics, pyrotechnics and more. Her most well-known work is The Dinner Party, which is permanently installed in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. The Dinner Party celebrates the accomplishments of women throughout history and is widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork. Other notable art projects by Chicago include the Birth Project, Powerplay, and the Holocaust Project.

Tracy Cooper-Lavery. Image courtesy Risen Films.
Tracy Cooper-Lavery
Tracy Cooper-Lavery is the Head, of Art Across Australia, incorporating Sharing the National Collection, Touring and Regional Initiatives at the National Gallery of Australia. She has an extensive career in Australian national and regional galleries including more than a decade in Director and senior management roles and is also currently the Chair of the National Gallery’s Gender Equity Action Plan Working Group.

Marie Hagerty, 2024. Photographer: Jessie Brown.
Marie Hagerty
Marie Hagerty is an award-winning Australian artist who specialises in abstraction and figurative arts, seeking to infuse her work with nebulous sensuality. Marie first studied at Meadowbank College of TAFE in Western Sydney, later attending the ANU School of Arts graduating with a Bachelors in Visual Arts in 1988. Since then, she has had over 20 solo exhibitions in both Australia and abroad. As an educator she has 25 years of experience teaching at her alma mater. Her work is held in public collections including National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, Artbank, ACT Legislative Assembly, Canberra Museum and Galley, Bendigo Art Gallery, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, and the Australian National University. She has received the Kayleen Arts Prize (2023), CAPO Fellowship (2018), Barton Estate Drawing Prize (2018), John McCaughey memorial prize (2004), Canberra Art Prize (2003), and an ANU residency in Switzerland (2008).

Katy Hessel, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, 2024
Katy Hessel
Katy Hessel is an art historian, curator, broadcaster, and author of The Story of Art without Men, a Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller, and the winner of Waterstones Book of the Year 2022.
She runs @thegreatwomenartists, an Instagram account that has celebrated women artists since 2015, and writes a fortnightly column for The Guardian.
Hessel hosts the podcasts The Great Women Artists Podcast, Death of an Artist: Krasner and Pollock, and Dior Talks – Feminist Art. In 2024, she launched Museums Without Men, an audio series highlighting works by women and gender non-conforming artists in museum collections worldwide. Listen to the National Gallery’s Museums without Men audio tour.
Hessel is a prolific lecturer, film presenter, and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3 and 4. She has written and presented arts documentaries for the BBC, such as Artemisia Gentileschi (2020) and Art on the BBC: Monet (2022).

Raquel Ormella, 2024. Photograph courtesy of the artist.
Raquel Ormella
Raquel Ormella’s practice encompasses various media and can be divided into two broad thematic streams: political language and its effects on national identity, and the complex relationship between humans and the natural environment. Her work was included in the landmark exhibition Australian Woman Artists 1901 to Now, as part of the National Gallery of Australia’s Know My Name program.
Her work has been featured in Biennale’s and major exhibitions across the world including Biennale of Sydney, Asian Art Biennial, California-Pacific Triennial, Aichi Triennale Japan, and Istanbul Biennale amongst others. In 2018 Shepparton Art Museum curated a solo survey show, I hope you get this, that toured to 5 regional and state galleries in the Eastern States with NETS Victoria. In 2020 she designed an exhibition centred on the youth movement to bring action on climate change for the Children’s Art Centre at Queensland Museum and Gallery of Modern Arts. She is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Art & Design, Australian National University, Canberra and is a Chief Investigator on the ARC project: Dialogue with difficult objects: Mediating controversy in museums. She is represented by Milani Gallery, Brisbane.

r e a, 2023. Photograph courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia.
r e a
*r e a is a descendant from the Gamilaraay/Wailwan people from the Central West NSW and Biripi people form the mid-North Coast of NSW. Their research-lead creative practice is informed by experimental digital arts, which is deeply grounded in lived experience that interrogates western cultural, ideologies and knowledge systems. r e a is a blak, queer, non-binary, truth‑teller who pushes boundaries, which span representation and thought, whether it be in academic or creative forms. They appeared at the 2022 Venice Biennale as a participant in aabaakwad (it clears after a storm) - a unique annual Indigenous-led conversation on Indigenous art by those who create, curate and write about it. Their work is held in numerous private and public art collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, Australian Museum, Powerhouse Museum and the Art Gallery of NSW.
*[r e a is the artist and author’s full name. r e a is aka; “r e a noir” as a play on representations of both the colour blak and its relationship to Pierre-August Renoir the French Impressionist painter. Due to Western and academic naming conventions, some of r e a’s writings are published under; r e a Saunders, Dr r e a (Regina) Saunders or as Dr Regina M. Saunders (Morris).
accessibility
We are committed to making our collections, exhibitions, building and events accessible to all visitors. A range of services are available to facilitate your visit to the Gallery.
Information to help you plan your visit is available on the National Gallery website.
This program will be Auslan interpreted. It also has open captioning for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing. Contact access@nga.gov.au or +61 2 6240 6632 for further information or assistance.
A Hearing Loop System is installed at the Gallery, covering the Main Entrance, James Fairfax Theatre and Tim Fairfax Learning Studio.
Mobility aids, such as motorised scooters, wheelchairs, and wheelie walkers are available on request from the information desk. Call +61 2 6240 6411 or email information@nga.gov.au to book a motorised scooter in advance.