Later this year, the Federal Government is launching a new National Cultural Policy. A founding principle of the new policy framework is recognising artists as workers. Yet without an Award for visual arts, craft and design, the struggle for many artists to make a living continues.
The longitudinal studies by Professor David Throsby on the economic circumstances of arts practitioners over the last three decades indicate that the level of visual artists’ and craft practitioners’ incomes continues to drop significantly, and that a substantial proportion of practitioners are earning below the poverty line.
Image © Nadia Hernández, 2022.
A significant number of visual artists and arts workers are underpaid, with little opportunity to negotiate their fees and wages. The lack of regulation, continuity and clarity through a legal framework for the visual arts means many employers, employees and artists themselves, find it difficult to determine and negotiate appropriate rates of pay for their work.
The National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) continues to have primary responsibility for setting payment standards through
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