On audiences, artists and connectivity: A NSW roundtable

In late April when Art Monthly Australia gathered together a panel of leading gallery directors and curators to discuss the visual arts of New South Wales (NSW), the state was being battered by a series of storms that saw golf ball-sized hail in the Blue Mountains and widespread damage, including the temporary closure of galleries across the Hunter. Perhaps it's testament to the strength and resilience of the state's visual arts institutions, and their experience buffeting other storms (political, economic, social), that the six panellists - Brett Adlington, Director of Lismore Regional Gallery; Michael Dagostino, Director of Campbelltown Arts Centre; Lisa Havilah, Director of Carriageworks; Talia Linz, Curator at Artspace; Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia; and Suhanya Raffel, Director of Collections at the Art Gallery of New South Wales - braved the weather and arrived in an array of wet-weather gear, and in chipper spirits, for a wide-ranging conversation about the major issues impacting on the vast and complex visual arts ecosystem that is NSW. The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place at Carriageworks, Sydney, on 22 April 2015.