This weekend, during the curtain call of Il Trovatore at the Royal Opera House, something quiet but deeply charged occurred. A cast member stepped forward and held aloft a Palestinian flag. Audience videos circulating online show a man — alleged in several posts to be Oliver Mears, Director of Opera at the ROH — entering the stage to wrest the flag from the performer's hands. The performer resisted, standing firm until the lights went down.
The ROH moved quickly to condemn the gesture, calling it "unauthorised and inappropriate," and offering an apology to audiences. It is a pattern that has become all too familiar: an artist, moved by conscience, makes a modest gesture in view of the public, and the institution rushes to assure everyone that it does not endorse it.
But what, exactly, are they apologising for?
This question has lingered with me since I watched the footage. Are they apologising because an artist broke the illusion of neutrality? Because a cultural space was revealed to be not separate from, but intimately connected to, the moral and political tensions of our world? Or are they apologising because, deep down, they believe that art has no business troubling its audiences?
A Pattern of Institutional Retreat
This weekend's incident is far from isolated. It's part of what my recent research reveals as a troubling pattern across cultural institutions: a reflexive retreat from the complexities of public discourse whenever artists express their humanity beyond the prescribed bounds of their roles.
I was reminded of what happened in August last year when pianist Jayson Gillham introduced the premiere of Witness by Connor D'Netto at a Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert. In his introduction — which had the composer's blessing — he referenced the killing of more than a hundred Palestinian journalists. He did so calmly, as he always does when contextualising works in his programs.
The MSO's reaction was swift. Gillham was removed from his next scheduled performance, and the orchestra issued a statement decrying his remarks as an "intrusion of personal political views."
The backlash was immediate. Audiences and colleagues rallied to his defence. The orchestra's musicians passed a motion of no confidence in management, citing years of poor leadership, and the incident culminated in the sacking of the CEO. Ongoing legal action between Gillham and the MSO continues to challenge the organisation's financial stability.
More recently, Creative Australia's withdrawal of Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino from representing Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale — only six days after announcing their selection — revealed the same institutional fragility. Following criticism of Sabsabi's 2007 work You, which featured manipulated images of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Creative Australia cited concerns about "a prolonged and divisive debate" that posed "an unacceptable risk to public support for Australia's artistic community." The decision sparked immediate resignations, including celebrated artist Lindy Lee from the board, and over 4,300 people signed petitions demanding reinstatement. While Sabsabi was eventually reinstated following an independent review that found "systemic failures" in Creative Australia's governance, the episode exposed the fragility of Australia's arms-length arts funding model.
And yet, even in the wake of these fallouts, here we are again — a cultural institution defaulting to censure and apology, as though the worst possible thing a performer can do is speak, quietly and personally, to the world beyond the stage.
Palestine: The Issue That Divides Like No Other
But does holding a flag at a curtain call automatically mean you are speaking for the institution? Does introducing a piece by acknowledging the lives of journalists imply the organisation formally endorses your statement? Or are we collapsing the distinction between individual expression and institutional policy, to the detriment of both?
These questions go to the heart of the role of culture in society — and they're questions our institutions seem increasingly unable or unwilling to engage with productively. What makes this moment particularly complex is that Palestine has divided Australia's cultural community like no other issue in recent memory.
Veteran publisher and artistic director Louise Adler, who has faced criticism for programming Palestinian voices long before October 7, 2023, identifies the core of the problem: "The tensions between the boards, the management and the artists have only increased, and one arts organisation after another has either publicly buckled or privately preemptively buckled on the pretext that art is not political."
Adler argues that this supposed neutrality is itself deeply political: "Of course, insisting on silence on the conflict in the Middle East issue is a deeply political position – it's just one that suits particular interest groups. The problem for arts organisations is that artists – not all artists, but many artists – want to speak to the issues of the day. So when arts managers and their boards fail to protect the right of artists to speak, a principle that should be sacrosanct, one has to question whether they have lost sight of the fundamentals."
The polarisation is evident in case after case. When Martu author KA Ren Wyld was stripped of a $15,000 fellowship from the State Library of Queensland just hours before it was due to be announced — following direct intervention by the arts minister over a social media post about Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar — several judges quit in protest. Sara El Sayed, an Egyptian Australian author and three-time judge, called it "the ultimate form of censorship," saying she couldn't understand "how the reaction is to take an opportunity away" from someone "supporting an oppressed people."
The consequences extend beyond individual cases. As celebrated author Michelle de Kretser warned in her 2025 Stella Prize speech: "All the time I was writing these words, a voice in my head whispered, 'You will be punished. You will be smeared with labels as potent and ugly as they're false. Career own goal,' warned the voice."
The pattern is evident across multiple incidents. Late in 2023, actors in the Sydney Theatre Company's The Seagull donned Palestinian keffiyehs during curtain call, leading to board members and donors withdrawing support and resulting in job losses. Similar controversies have continued to unfold at other major institutions, with the fallout proving severe and long-lasting.
What emerges from these incidents is not just institutional timidity, but a fundamental confusion about the relationship between artists and the organisations that present them. This reflects what I call the anticipatory conformity of cultural leadership: pre-emptive concessions made to avoid potential, rather than actual, controversy. This dynamic is particularly troubling because it requires no direct political interference; the mere possibility of reputational risk becomes enough to trigger self-censorship.
The pattern follows a depressingly familiar script. Late in 2023, actors in the Sydney Theatre Company's The Seagull donned Palestinian keffiyehs during curtain call, leading to foundation board members and donors withdrawing support and resulting in job losses. The STC's response was a series of unfocused and ineffective apologies, seemingly designed to placate a stakeholder base it believed to have offended. Rather than mitigating the backlash, this approach only reinforced perceptions of institutional fragility. The wider ramifications were significant: continued donor withdrawals, financial instability, and ultimately, job cuts.
These incidents reveal institutions that have lost sight of their fundamental purpose, operating under what might be called "the MBA mindset" — a focus on measurable outputs and stakeholder management that can lose sight of the deeper purpose that gives cultural work meaning. As Wesley Enoch observed when I interviewed him early last year: "At the end of the show, when I'm taking a bow, am I allowed to be an individual or am I still part of the collective?"
That question has no simple answer. But it is precisely the kind of question our institutions should be equipped to explore, not suppress.
The Artist as Society's Conscience
When I spoke to Wesley Enoch last year, he spoke of artists as society's conscience. "We reserve the right to have an opinion about things in the world," he said. "We are actively engaged in public discourse through the making of our work."
Enoch's point was that cultural leaders — whether artists or administrators — are not neutral stewards of safe spaces. They are participants in public life, and their work exists because the world is messy and contested. As he put it: "We weaken ourselves by stepping away from the debate. We should be encouraged to step into the middle of it."
This perspective challenges the comfortable fiction that cultural institutions can remain above the fray of contemporary concerns. It suggests that the very attempt to maintain institutional neutrality in the face of moral and political complexity is itself a political choice — one that privileges the comfort of existing audiences over the conscience of individual artists.
Yet in case after case — from the Royal Opera House to the MSO to the Sydney Theatre Company's Seagull controversy — institutions have recoiled from that responsibility, treating their artists' humanity as a liability. They have apologised not for hate speech or disruption, but for the mere fact that art provoked reflection.
The Failure of Leadership
This retreat is not only a failure of moral courage but a profound misunderstanding of the institution's own role. In my research into cultural leadership in Australia's orchestras, I argue that leadership is not about resolving tensions but about holding them productively — what I call harmonising purpose. Institutions can maintain internal alignment and coherent values while making room for diverse, even uncomfortable, individual voices.
The public value era in which cultural institutions now operate demands precisely this kind of sophisticated leadership. Organisations are expected to demonstrate their value across multiple dimensions: artistic, educational, social, economic, and civic. They must show not only that they produce excellent work, but also that this excellence has meaningful impacts for diverse stakeholders.
Yet when faced with the kind of complexity that these multiple stakeholder relationships inevitably generate, too many institutions default to the lowest common denominator: bland neutrality that satisfies no one and stands for nothing.
As my research reveals, this approach weakens rather than strengthens institutional legitimacy. In an era where cultural institutions must continuously justify their public support, the capacity to navigate complexity with integrity becomes a core leadership competency, not an optional extra.
The Corporate Influence and Risk Aversion
Part of the problem lies in what Wesley Enoch identified as a fundamental shift in arts governance: the growing influence of corporate and philanthropic interests on cultural boards. "What has really happened is a lot of our captains of industry have stepped in and become on our boards," Enoch observes. "Even when people come into crisis management situations, it's rare to hear an organisation talk about its values — even though we have to put them in our strategic plans."
This corporate influence has brought a risk-averse mindset that treats any form of controversy as inherently damaging, regardless of its moral content or artistic relevance. The independent review of Creative Australia's handling of the Sabsabi affair reveals exactly this confusion: rather than using risk assessment to prepare for and navigate controversy, staff and board members saw risk as something to be avoided entirely. This misunderstanding — treating risk identification as a cue for censorship rather than preparation — left the organisation exposed and paralysed when pressure mounted.
The review found that Creative Australia lacked basic risk assessment processes for its highest-profile decisions, had no crisis management planning, and failed to brief key stakeholders about potential sensitivities. Perhaps most tellingly, the organisation operated under a fundamental confusion about risk management itself, seeing controversy as a failure to be avoided rather than a natural consequence of meaningful artistic expression.
The result is institutions that can document their value on paper while becoming increasingly invisible in public discourse. They can tick every KPI while failing to create the kind of meaningful connection with communities that sustains cultural institutions in the long term. As my research on orchestral leadership reveals, this approach weakens rather than strengthens institutional legitimacy in an era where cultural institutions must continuously justify their public support.
The Global Context and Local Retreat
These failures occur against an alarming international backdrop. In the United States, book bans have surged to record levels, with over 4,200 titles — nearly half of them by LGBTQ+ or BIPOC authors — targeted for removal from libraries in 2023 alone. Globally, governments are asserting greater control over cultural institutions, from museum purges in Hungary to artistic blacklists in Russia.
Yet in Australia, the threats to artistic freedom are more subtle but no less concerning. The Palestine question has created what employment lawyer Josh Bornstein calls a "cancel culture" fostered by pressure from sections of the media, politicians and lobby groups, leading organisations to make "fast, panicked decisions." As Bornstein observes: "An organisation goes into brand management mode and the usual denouement in the post-October 7 atmosphere is to eliminate the source of complaints from the organisation."
Louise Adler identifies a particular dynamic at work: "The conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and the conflation of support for Palestine with support for terrorism, has made organisations shy away from defending artists' freedom of expression." She argues there are legitimate boundaries: "I am not going to offer the microphone to people who are involved in hate speech or incitement to violence or racism. I don't think that's a question of free speech. No decent person wants to be accused of antisemitism, of any kind of racism. But once criticism of Israel is conflated with antisemitism... you've successfully manufactured the catalogue of silenced artists we have witnessed in recent years."
The febrile nature of this issue has created an environment where artists feel they must choose between career opportunities and standing up for their beliefs. As author Sara El Sayed puts it: "I think a lot of people, especially artists, feel a moral obligation to speak out against what is occurring." Yet the institutional response has been to increasingly police not just what artists say in their professional capacity, but their entire public expression. The State Library of Victoria now requires contracted writers and artists to sign agreements that when making any public statements, they "clearly state that these views and opinions do not reflect or represent the views or positions of State Library Victoria."
This level of institutional control over artists' personal expression represents a fundamental shift in how cultural organisations understand their relationship with the creators they present. As writer Jinghua Qian asks: "If you contract someone for a one-hour panel or workshop, do you have the right to limit, police and punish them for their creative expression outside of that booking?"
Missing the Conversation
What's most troubling about these incidents is not the initial moment of artist expression, but the institutional response that shuts down rather than opens up conversation. Wesley Enoch contrasts the Sydney Theatre Company controversy with his own handling of a similar moment in his 2021 production, The Visitors, where the cast engaged in weeks of dialogue before co-crafting a nuanced message calling for Middle East peace.
"Something about being in the middle of it is really important for artists because that's what we do," Wesley reflected in our conversation. "We weaken ourselves by stepping away from the debate. We should be encouraged to step into the middle of the debate — and through having the debate, inform ourselves, inform others, educate, lift up the level of discussion."
This is the conversation our institutions are failing to facilitate. The Creative Australia review confirmed this failure, noting the organisation's inability to engage meaningfully with challenging work or prepare stakeholders for complex discussions. Instead of creating spaces for nuanced discourse about complex issues, they're defaulting to censure and apology. Instead of using these moments to demonstrate their relevance to contemporary concerns, they're positioning themselves as guardians of an artificial neutrality that satisfies no one.
The Palestine question has made this institutional paralysis particularly acute. As poet Nam Le asked in a recent speech: "What good is harmony if it only and always exists on terms dictated by power? If it's built on injustice, or enforced civility – enforced silence?" His words capture the fundamental tension: cultural institutions that have worked to diversify their audiences and platform previously under-represented voices now find themselves policing those same voices when they speak to the most pressing moral questions of our time.
The Sabsabi case provides a particularly stark example. Creative Australia's Board convened an emergency meeting within hours of political criticism, rescinding the artists' appointment without attempting to defend their decision or engage in meaningful dialogue about the work's significance. As Simon Mordant, twice Australia's commissioner at Venice, said in response: he was "appalled" by the move, calling it "unprecedented." The collective arts community response — including resignations, petitions signed by over 4,300 people, and support from all other shortlisted artists — demonstrated the power of cultural solidarity, ultimately leading to Sabsabi's reinstatement. But it shouldn't have taken such mobilisation to defend basic principles of artistic freedom.
The Urgent Questions
So perhaps the more urgent question is this: if our cultural institutions cannot distinguish between an artist expressing themselves and an institution issuing policy, what are they here for? If the only voices permitted are those that make nobody uncomfortable, why do we need culture at all?
These incidents reveal institutions that have lost sight of their fundamental purpose. Culture does not exist to protect us from the world, but to help us live in it more fully, more thoughtfully, more humanely. When cultural institutions retreat from complexity, they abdicate their essential role in fostering the kind of public discourse democracy requires.
The questions raised by this weekend's incident are not just another controversy to be managed. They are fundamental questions about the role of culture in public life: What do we expect of our artists? What do we expect of our institutions? And what are we actually apologising for when conscience meets curtain call?
As Wesley Enoch put it in our conversation: "The arts should be a very soft place to have a disagreement." But increasingly, our institutions seem more interested in avoiding disagreement altogether than in creating the conditions for productive discourse.
A Different Path Forward
There is another way. Cultural institutions can maintain their integrity while making space for individual expression. They can hold multiple perspectives without losing their coherence. They can engage with contemporary concerns without abandoning their artistic mission.
This requires what I call cultural leadership: the capacity to harmonise purpose across competing demands, to practice authentic social participation rather than performative outreach, and to create genuine value for diverse stakeholders rather than simply managing their competing interests.
The Sabsabi reinstatement offers important lessons. The independent review's nine recommendations for Creative Australia include risk assessment frameworks and crisis management planning — but more importantly, they signal a recognition that controversy is not a failure to be avoided but a natural consequence of meaningful artistic expression. The collective response of Australia's cultural community — from resignations to petitions to public statements — demonstrated that artistic freedom is not upheld solely by policy but relies on a sector prepared to defend its principles when they are tested.
This requires institutions that understand their role not as neutral arbiters but as active participants in public discourse — organisations that stand for something beyond their own institutional survival. Cultural institutions exist to create the conditions for that productive disagreement, not to shut it down preemptively.
Most importantly, it requires recognising that when an artist holds up a flag during curtain call, they are not necessarily speaking for the institution. They are speaking as a human being who happens to work in the arts, exercising the same right to conscience that we expect of citizens in any other walk of life. The challenge for institutions is developing the capacity to hold that distinction while supporting the artists they exist to serve.
The question is whether our institutions have the courage to hold that distinction, and the wisdom to understand that in doing so, they might actually fulfill rather than compromise their deepest purpose.
Until we can answer those questions honestly — and act on them — culture risks becoming nothing more than decoration.
And I, for one, believe it can be much more than that.
Dr Samuel Cairnduff researches and writes about cultural leadership. He teaches in the University of Melbourne's School of Culture and Communication, presents the podcast Decoding Cultural Leadership, and runs RESONATE Cultural Leadership , a cultural strategy and communications consultancy.