Living on Kaurna Country, Emma Fey (she/her) is Deputy Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia, where she oversees audiences, programming, partnerships, philanthropy, brand and commercial operations.

With more than 20 years’ experience across the arts, higher education and not‑for‑profit sectors, Emma is widely respected for her ability to cultivate deep and impactful partnerships and drive innovative approaches to audience and market development. 

Before joining AGSA, Emma was CEO of Guildhouse, South Australia’s peak organisation for visual artists, craftspeople and designers. Emma brings a South Australian perspective to national-facing visual arts and collecting institutions, championing new ways of thinking, working and collaborating and delivering sustained outcomes for audiences and communities. Emma is Co-Chair of Artlink Australia.

How has collaboration across disciplines shaped your work and/or practice?
My practice of leading arts organisations and creative projects has been entirely shaped by collaboration.

While I harboured creative aspirations as a very young person, the path I took included studies in business and subsequently experience working in marketing, communications and fundraising in a number of sectors. Once I found my way to the visual arts, I realised the most powerful thing I could bring was my ability to facilitate partnerships and collaboration across sectors and organisations. I recall when I took on the role as CEO of Guildhouse, South Australia’s lead body for visual artists, craftspeople and designers, a few members looked askance at my lack of visual arts training. I knew then, as I do now, how important it is to invite artists into every aspect of how I work.

I have been very fortunate to learn from excellent mentors the art of radical friend making. Nurturing opportunities for artists and other fields of expertise to discover each other – to manifest something new – is a great joy of my professional life. 

“to manifest something new – is a great joy of my professional life”

– Emma Fey

Which film, book, exhibition or moment shifted the way you see the world?
Stealing a clandestine viewing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at age 12 while babysitting my neighbours’ children changed me. In that one afternoon I got a glimpse of the multitudes of ways there are to live, and it was absolutely exhilarating.

There have been countless books, works of art and exhibitions that have transformed my understanding of the world, and myself in it. The earliest iteration of the Kulata Tjuta project in Nick Mitzevich’s 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Dark Heart – a constellation of spears by senior Aṉangu men installed in a cloud-like formation with a rattling soundscape was a meditation on the power and strength of Aṉangu culture, of knowledge sharing and truth telling. We were fortunate to reprise this work in AGSA’s recent 2025 Tarnanthi Festival, in celebration of ten years of AGSA’s renowned festival of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art.

The raw honesty of Tracey Emin’s My Bed, Olafur Eliasson’s Beauty, currently on display at QAGOMA as part of the exhibition Presence, and Yhonnie Scarce’s In the Dead House are all works that have shifted me.

Novels are a deep pleasure – there are too many to name. However, there are instances where an author speaks to your soul; Rachel Cusk’s spare and truthful novels, particularly Arlington Park, Amanda Lohrey’s The Labyrinth, Tyson Yunkaporta’s revelatory Sand Talk, Kate Grenville’s The Secret River and Hannah Kent’s Devotion are just a few.

Who would be your dream collaborator and what would you want to create together?
The late designer Khai Liew – I would have loved to have worked with Khai to bring together a consortium of architects and artists to create an expansion wing for the Art Gallery of South Australia.

What’s next on your horizon, a project, an idea, a wild experiment?
Thanks to a generous scholarship from the Chief Executive Women network, I will soon visit Oxford to undertake a strategic leadership intensive with a group of people of different disciplinary backgrounds from all over the world. 

I purposely sought out this program for its interdisciplinary and non-traditional curriculum. The arts are embedded in every aspect of human endeavour and the arts alone cannot change our current paradigm. Enabling access to art, creative expression and inquiry to the broadest possible audience, and doing so in a way that fosters open hearts, open discourse and discovery takes vigilance, determination and a truly collective approach. We need to foster our connection to humanity in order to better understand how we can navigate the future. This is my wild experiment, and I am all in.

ANAT supports work that pushes boundaries and connects fields. How do you see your work contributing to new ways of thinking or creating in the world?
In my role at the Art Gallery of South Australia, I have the privilege of creating a range of circumstances that enable people to encounter art. I never presume to know what that might lead to; what doors might open, ideas seeded, or ways to live born out.

One of the programs we deliver at AGSA that pushes boundaries and connects people is our Neo program for teens, 13 to 17 years. With the generous help of private philanthropy in South Australia we coproduce six Saturday night events per year where teens from all backgrounds literally take over the Art Gallery of South Australia. The program, content and ideas are all shaped by a cohort of Neo teen ambassadors. I am always so impressed by the creativity, the participation and the assuredness of these incredible young people who are our future leaders and boundary liberators.  Together with the teen ambassadors, we invite multidisciplinary creatives and organisations to create experiences for South Australian young people to discover.

A social experience set in an arts context for young people to discover themselves and the world through art, offers so much promise and opportunity for the future.

What do you think of when you think about ANAT?
Experimental practice. Great intellects exploring and expounding new ways of expressing and experiencing the world.

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