Australian art director moves to Aarhus ECoC

Juliana Engberg, artistic director of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), has been appointed program director of the Aarhus 2017 European Capital of Culture (ECoC).

The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne will soon see the departure of artistic director Juliana Engberg, who takes up a new role in April as program director for the European Capital of Culture in Aarhus, Denmark.

ACCA chair John Denton made the announcement on March 1, praising the Danish-Australian Engberg for her dedication to ACCA and for her contribution in making the institution “Australia’s most significant contemporary art space.”

Since 2002, Juliana Engberg has held the position as Artistic Director at ACCA in Melbourne. She has been the Artistic Director and Curator of numerous international Biennales and arts festivals, such as the Biennale of Sydney 2014, and she has more than 30 years of experience within arts and culture. During this period, she has curated over 500 exhibitions.

Announcing the appointment, Aarhus 2017 CEO Rebecca Matthews said:

“Juliana Engberg has an incredible background and a reputation for creating ground breaking, compelling and engaging cultural activities and projects, and she has demonstrated strong skills in delivering complex, time sensitive and time expansive projects."

Engberg is one of Australia’s most prominent art-world figures. In 2007, she was the senior curatorial advisor for the Australian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale and most recently was the artistic director of the 19th Biennale of Sydney in 2014. Engberg was awarded the Australia Council Visual Arts Laureate Medal in 2013 for her exceptional achievements to the development of the Australian cultural sector.

Juliana Engberg is an award-winning and internationally recognized artistic director with close links to Denmark: Her father was Danish and her mother Australian.

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