SAM operates on the traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta people. The SAM Building, and art museum within it, is located on river country close to the Goulburn River, known as Kaiela to the Yorta Yorta.

SAM recognises the Yorta Yorta as the traditional owners and ongoing custodians of the lands and water of the Country upon which SAM is built, and that sovereignty of this land has never been ceded.