COVID-19

This COVID-19 Industry Advisory Note is intended for NAVA Members and our colleagues in the contemporary arts sector across Australia. This webpage is not offered as health advice nor health emergency management advice. As circumstances change, this advice may change.

Context

Across the world, precautions are being taken to protect us from the novel coronavirus COVID-19, a respiratory illness that is causing a rapidly growing number of deaths. On 11 March 2020 the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a pandemic and called for “urgent and aggressive action”. This action includes stringent personal hygiene and physical distancing to prevent rapid community transmission. The Australian Government began to advise physical distancing measures and restrictions on public gatherings on 13 March 2020, and since then galleries have closed, public gatherings have not been permitted, interstate and international travel has been suspended, and we have been advised to stay at home. The latest information is on the Department of Health's website. These actions are vital to protecting our health and saving lives. They also have significant impacts on Australia’s cultural life – and on the artists, arts workers and organisations who create our arts and cultural experiences.

In Australia, arts events and public programs have been downscaled, postponed, or cancelled. Biennials, festivals, exhibitions, symposia, residencies, workshops, talks and all other programs are jeopardised indefinitely, with a debilitating effect on our cultural life. Organisations have seen their self-generated income vanish, and are having to make difficult decisions around staffing. Individual artists – the practitioners whose itinerant work invented the terms “gig economy” and “portfolio career” – have been facing unexpected income losses, many of which amount to a year or two years' worth of work.

This means that all arts organisations have faced detrimental financial impacts as a result of COVID-19. NAVA continues to assess those impacts, plan ahead as best we can, and advocate for what’s needed to ensure that our industry remains viable and Australia’s cultural life remains vibrant.

Financial support

Please visit the Australia Council's Guide to government COVID-19 assistance for the arts 2021 for regularly updated information on the various assistance initiatives that are being provided by federal and state/territory governments.

Visit the Australian Taxation Office for information about JobMaker Hiring Credit for businesses.

Support for individuals

COVID-19 Disaster Payment - Services Australia

Australian Government - Office for the Arts

ACT - artsACT

NSW - Create NSW

NSW rent assistance - NSW Government

NT Arts and Culture COVID-19 Interruption Support - NT Government

Queensland - Arts Queensland

South Australia - Arts Recovery Fund

Tasmania - Arts Tasmania

Western Australia – culture and arts funding

Business support

ACT COVID-19 Business Support Grant - ACT Business Hub

NSW COVID-19 Business Grants - Service NSW

NSW COVID Development Grants - Create NSW

Northern Territory Business Lockdown Payment Program - NT Government

Queensland COVID-19 Business Support Grants - Business Queensland

Tasmania COVID-19 Business Support - Business Tasmania

Victorian Business Support - Business Victoria

SA COVID-19 Business Support - SA Department of Treasury and Finance

Mental health support

At this difficult time, please know that support is near:

Call Support Act's Wellbeing Helpline on 1800 959 500 within Australia, or via email. Zoom video calls are also available.
Call Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14 or text the helpline on 0477 13 11 14.
Beyond Blue has a comprehensive list of national help lines and websites.

Reopening resources for galleries

Is your gallery planning to reopen? Access NAVA's tips and resources to help your arts organisation navigate through this process.

NAVA partnered with the Art Gallery of NSW and Create NSW to host a free webinar to support individuals and organisations as the sector prepares to open up. Emily Crocker, Head of Government and Corporate Planning at the Art Gallery of NSW presented AGNSW’s experience and shared tips on:

Communicating vaccination and mask mandates to audiences
De-escalation techniques and dealing with customers/visitors in the space
Risk mitigation and preparing for escalated situations
Planning for the future.

Industry advice

Best practice at this time is about ensuring we’re protecting everyone’s health first and foremost, while doing what we can to minimise the immediate and long-term impacts.

Reassess risks: NAVA advises Members and all sector organisations to re-assess the health, financial, cultural, community and other risks that your organisation or business faces this year. Consider bringing your board and executive staff together by teleconference as soon as you can to undertake these assessments, so that you’re in the best position to plan your work this year.
Working from home: Consider what arrangements you have in place for working from home, and how best to implement these.
Keep your key financial stakeholders including government updated about the impacts on your organisation. Be assured that NAVA will be doing the same on behalf of artists, the sector and the entire industry.
Offer brief small, common-sense advice that reminds us to wash our hands, shield our coughs, and stay at home if we’re unwell. Offer advice that links people directly to information from public health authorities in your state rather than offering your own, so that we’re all connected to the most authoritative information and its updates.
Complete a COVIDSafe Plan as required by authorities in your state when your gallery or business is open to the public. This document will outline all the measures you are taking to keep everyone safe.
Get in touch with artists who will are affected by your program changes as early as you can, and let them know what your plans are. NAVA is advocating to government and philanthropic bodies that the payment of artists and freelance or casual arts workers be prioritised from funds that have been secured for this purpose, ensuring also that organisations are not penalised come acquittal time. We're heartened to see that many states and territories have already made such announcements.
Take extra special care with all of your communications at this time: formal and informal, internal and external. Be aware of how your language and tone may be received by people experiencing this crisis in different ways. Express your duty of care and emphasise that care. Be as clear as you can, and consider how your message can be repeated and presented across multiple formats.

National priorities

Australia’s arts industry is already in a precarious condition as the result of public investment not having kept apace with industry growth and public policy not aligning with industry needs. Action is required to ensure that the COVID-19 impacts do not devastate the arts sector.

NAVA is advocating for three urgent measures to ensure hard-hit visual artists, arts workers and arts organisations have access to vital financial support in this time of economic crises and to build resilience and confidence for the sector.

Provide crisis funding for the visual arts. To date $40 million has been allocated to music charity Support Act initially for the music sector, but opened to live performing arts in August 2021. NAVA calls for this support to be made available to the visual art sector or a proportionate allocation to be made to NAVA’s Artists’ Benevolent Fund. Additionally, NAVA calls on the state and territory governments to amplify this commitment with allocations for each jurisdiction.
Introduce a business interruption insurance scheme, underwritten by the government, to guarantee payments to artists and employees following the cancellation or closure of an exhibition or event due to COVID-19, ensuring payments to artists are guaranteed.
Invest in a national commissioning and new work fund targeted at the visual arts sector without a prescribed event or outcome.

NAVA’s action and campaigns

Sit For An Artist campaign

Sit For An Artist

The visual arts sector is in crisis. Australian artists and arts workers have been impacted by lockdowns across the country with their exhibitions and commissions cancelled.

NAVA’s Sit For An Artist campaign was created in response to deep concerns about the long-term impacts of the pandemic and lockdowns on visual artists, galleries, organisations and arts workers. It is a play on the age-old concept of sitting for an artists portrait, but this time NAVA is asking Australians to sit for a COVID vaccination.

Fronting the campaign, which was filmed at the National Art School in Sydney, are Thea Perkins, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Wendy Sharpe and Dean Cross.

NAVA's immediate action

NAVA is open for business, offering advice and support to our Members, and leading policy, advocacy and action for a contemporary arts sector that’s ambitious and fair.
NAVA staff are working from home, and all interstate travel is suspended. Given our national focus, our office systems are already designed to promote remote working and online meetings for effective national collaboration.
We encourage all enquiries to be made via email rather than by phone, so that we’re best placed to respond to you wherever we are.
Unfortunately, NAVA's Members' insurance package does not cover loss of income due to cancellation of work and other impacts of COVID-19. Please follow this link to more information.
We're leading regular national roundtables on crisis management and post-COVID19 transition.
NAVA already presents a range of programs and events online, including workshops, online courses, and our suite of professional practice resources.
We are seeking donations for the Artists’ Benevolent Fund. Donations of $2.00 or more are tax-deductible.
We've led national industry unity to create clear outlines of what's needed and what's missing in the Australian Government's response to date, and this work has directly informed the packages offered at capital city, state and territory level.
We're working closely with sector peak bodies across all artforms, with key organisations, and with artists and artist groups, to support effective advocacy for urgently needed action.
We remain in ongoing contact with state and federal ministries and government departments, as well as state and national colleague organisations, working hard to make sure that the impacts on our sector are minimised and that the government response becomes effective.