Advance Your Career: Artists at Work – Fees, Rights and Getting Paid

As part of Accessible Arts' Advance Your Career series for artists and arts workers with disability or who are d/Deaf, Accessible Arts is partnering with the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) to present this free, online workshop.

Artist Paula do Prado will share insights from her practice and experience navigating professional opportunities in the arts. 

Led by Shoufay Derz (Visual Artist and NSW Professional Development Coordinator at NAVA), the workshop introduces key tools from the Code of Practice for Visual Arts, Craft and Design, a sector-wide resource that provides minimum standards and guidance for fair and ethical working relationships. 

The session will cover: 

• How to use the Code of Practice, including payment standards 

• Practical approaches to budgeting and artist fees 

• Superannuation, intellectual property (IP), and auspicing in an arts context 

• Strategies for advocating for fair pay and quoting to industry standards 

Participants will gain a clear understanding of how the Code of Practice can be used as a tool for navigating fees, payment, and working relationships. A facilitated Q&A will follow the presentations, and participants are welcome to bring questions about their own practice.

Where & When

Thursday 18 June 3pm – 4.30pm Online (via Zoom)

This event will be captioned and Auslan interpreted. If you have any access requirements, please get in touch with Shoufay Derz shoufay@visualarts.net.au

Paula do Prado 

Paula do Prado is a visual artist, researcher and creative workshop facilitator working with various forms of tejido (weaving) based on the sovereign lands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people. Born in Uruguay on the lands of the Charrúa Nation, she migrated to Australia in the mid 80s. Her art practice surfaces the intersections of her West African Bantu-Kongo, Iberian and Charrúa ancestral lineages. Anchored in the Abya-Yala concepts of cuerpo-territorio-espiritu (body-land-spirit) and sentipensar (feel-thinking), her art practice is indivisible from her cultural and spiritual practices, her family, community and beyond-human kin relationships.

Paula’s work has been exhibited in national and international group exhibitions, including Frieze London 2025, VIMA Cyprus Art Fair 2025, Limassol; Indian Ocean Craft Triennial (IOTA), 2024, Perth, Western Australia; The 1st and 5th Tamworth Textile Triennial touring exhibition; Tiwani Contemporary, London; Textile Biennial Rijswijk, 2019, The Netherlands; Bankstown Biennale: Sub Terrains 2022, Bankstown, and 4a Centre for Contemporary Art, Sydney. In addition to her own arts practice, Paula works as an artist in community and has previously worked with Spinifex Hill Studio Artists in Port Hedland, Western Australia and is currently working with the GUL Collective, part of the Multicultural Women’s Hub, a program initiative of Arts and Cultural Exchange (ACE) Parramatta.

Paula holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, First Class Honours (Textiles) and a Master of Fine Arts (Research) from the University of New South Wales. She has recently completed a practice-led PhD at the University of Sydney where she is also a member of the Sydney Indigenous Research Network.

Paula is currently supported by the 2025 Artspace Studio Program. 

Dr Shoufay 曉霏 Derz 

Dr Shoufay 曉霏 Derz is an artist, researcher and educator working on Gadigal Country, Sydney. Her practice spans photography, moving image, text and material processes, often emerging through relational and processbased approaches. She has exhibited widely, undertaken numerous residencies, and her work is held in public and private collections. 

She has taught across universities, art schools and community programs, and has worked internationally, including several years in Berlin where she codirected a contemporary arts project space, curating exhibitions and public programs, supporting artist residencies, and extending her practice into pedagogical forms. She holds a PhD from the University of Sydney examining visual poetics of the ineffable and the role of opacity in shaping social, cultural and institutional relations. 

At NAVA, she coordinates professional learning initiatives across metropolitan, regional and remote NSW, delivering programs that strengthen understanding and application of the Code of Practice for Visual Arts, Craft and Design, while advancing equitable, accessible and sustainable practice across the sector. 

The National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) is a membership organisation that brings together the many voices of the contemporary arts sector to improve fundamental conditions of work and practice. We do this through advocacy, education and the Code of Practice. For further information visit www.visualarts.net.au. 

NAVA’s Code sets out equitable, ethical and selfreflective standards for the Australian contemporary arts sector. The Code has been endorsed by the Australian Government as part of the National Cultural Policy. 

NAVA acknowledges and pays respects to the rightful custodians of the many First Nations lands upon which this online event will be streamed and received. We recognise all custodians of Country across all lands, waters and territories, and pay our respects to Elders past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded. 

NAVA’s resources, including the Code, are written specifically for visual arts, craft and design practitioners, as NAVA is the national body for visual artists.