Notes from NAVA Workshop for National Cultural Policy: Centring the artist

• Industrial reform that gives the Fair Work Commission powers to set minimum standards for artists and art workers and the scope and flexibility the Fair Work Commission needs to deal with “employee-like” forms of work
• Establish an industrial Award rate for the visual arts and craft which legislates the payment of artists’ fees.
• Extend the small claims jurisdiction in the Fair Work Division of the Court to assist artists to resolve disputes without recourse to costly legal proceedings
• Basic income scheme for artists and arts workers.
• Centrelink to recognise art as a profession and adopt income averaging in similar to ways this type of income is handled by the ATO under the Tax Ruling: carrying on business as a professional artist.
• Superannuation reform so that visual artists receive super contributions.
• Art prizes, fellowships, scholarships, and government grants are tax exempt. 
• Raise the allocation for arms length peer-assessed arts funding for independent practitioners and at least 200 small-to-medium organisations through the Australia Council.
• 300 new 3-year Creative Fellowships through the Australia Council awarded annually (900 fellows funded across three year funding cycles).
• Ensure public funding is contingent on the payment of visual artists at or above minimum standard rates as set out in NAVA’s Code of Practice, and that funding levels are adequate to support those payments.
• Australia Council funds restored back to 2013 levels as a baseline and adjusted for inflation at a minimum.
• Tax incentives promote the purchase of work by living Australian artists. Give to the arts, buy art schemes and taxation incentives.
• Improve the benefit to artists donating direct to the Cultural Gifts Program.
• Introduce tax incentives for individuals to buy the work of Australian artists and craft practitioners.
• Invest in existing peak bodies, support agencies and service organisations to increase professional development programs for artists and arts workers.
• Support universities and TAFEs to expand delivery of professional practice units for all arts students.
• The key artforms (dance, drama, media arts, music, visual arts and design) are core and mandatory in the national curriculum for all children at all levels. Secondary schools are properly resourced with specialist arts teachers.
• Affordable space for artists is included in urban and regional master planning.
• Artists who are approved members of their professional association, such as NAVA, are recognised as “responsible persons” for board appointments on DGR registered organisations.

Reform can help overcome some of the barriers there are to producing art. We acknowledge that over the preceding decades both government and policy makers have given so much weight to the creative economy and industries and they put art to work like never before, but along the way have devalued artistic labour. Since we last had cultural policy in this country all the broader socio-industrial conditions have degraded. There's so much more precarity baked into the system which makes everything harder for artists. We fundamentally have a system that asks artists to compete against each other for cultural and actual capital, through their labour, both material and immaterial. Art making is an ecology. It's going to require a similarly integrated policy response. Today is an opportunity to think about the whole policy landscape, from urban planning legislation to industrial reform, to rent caps.

Award rate for artists

We need a Modern Award in the visual arts and craft. Award wages would be really helpful, publicised everywhere and enforceable via Fair Work. The current NAVA rates for artists and arts workers are recommended as an industry standard, which means they are voluntary not mandatory and while galleries and others should pay artists, they don’t have to. As an Award it would be pushed and promoted throughout the rest of society. 

We need an Award rate which is accessible in the same way that people find out to pay other workers. The NAVA standards for fees and wages are known within the industry but not outside of that. We need an Award rate which is widely known to the general public for all the projects we get asked to do outside of the arts. Artists rights, pay and conditions should be enforceable.

Sustaining artist practices and careers through minimum award wage and standards for artists, especially for funding provided by funding bodies. Artists should have access to workplace health and safety and workers compensation when contracted by institutions such as galleries, in a similar way as employees are able to access the benefits.

Promoting the concept of artist as worker is important. 

State institutions in leadership positions are not paying fairly / not paying NAVA rates - this trickles down to all levels as behaviour in the arts ecosystem 

It is important to ensure artists are seen as workers. Point raised that many artists are not aware that the current NAVA guidelines for best practice exist. Need to raise awareness. 

We need to legislate the paid rates for artists - until we have that no one is going to take fair pay for artists seriously. Currently there are little consequences of this being breached for orgs, but big consequences for artists ability to survive and thrive.

Developing an Award for artists: size of artist fees / versus an hourly rate. Think about artists how to employ artists beyond a set fee for projects. Looking at payment across entire exhibition practice via an award rate. 

There should be minimum rates of pay for commissioned work by govt bodies. 

We need transparency with regards to artist rates within curated exhibitions and institutional  organisations - good to know upfront what people are being paid and that there is equity. 

Basic Income for the Arts

Trial a basic income scheme for artists and arts workers to address the financial instability caused by intermittent, periodic and project based faced nature of working in the arts. This will fundamentally contribute to the sector's regrowth post pandemic.

The structural aspects of being employed as an artist are very different compared to other industries and it's primarily contract work that is delivering the arts. This is where the conversation about UBI comes in as well but within that there's a huge gap, as a contract worker my rights regarding mental health, disability access enshrined in employment law I don't have any of that as a contract worker and in its arts there's a higher proportion of people with lived experience of mental health and living with disability so there's a significant gap there.  

There is a lot of support towards movement towards universal basic income. We also discussed the differentiation between Centrelink payments, and the requirements of reporting and the burden of having to report on receiving payments and the need to move towards something that's more sustainable and long term rather than cyclical. 

The idea of a living wage whether that's something like a UBI and that there's moving income support away from welfare so it's something that's valued rather than seen as a hand out.  And aligning any sort of formal payment with workers' rights and industrial reform rather than seen as welfare.  

Artists wages are paramount. Living wage idea would shift artists off Centrelink benefits and put them into a category that is acknowledge and respected. For Indigenous artists, it backs cultural storytelling as paramount to cultural identity. Commensurate geographically - regional costs are higher than metro.

Universal basic income would be fantastic. France offers a good model. Canada and Ireland trialing UBI etc. New York, USA trialing under the program - Creative Rebuild. Basic Income for the Arts (BIA - Ireland).

We need to move away from centrelink payments (work for the dole, one-off startup payment, burden of reporting obligations) toward something more sustainable.

Centrelink

Ensure artists have their profession recognised by centrelink, building our capacity to earn an income from our work, and not jeopardising any payment of benefits if one-off grants or awards are earned. 

The recognised tasks and activities under the mutual obligation system should be expanded to allow arts practitioners to lodge the work they’ve been seeking as artists or arts workers to comply with Centrelink reporting requirements.

Artists engaged in the creation of new work for exhibition or publication should have their profession as an artist recognised by Centrelink, building their capacity to earn an income from their work, and not jeopardising any payment of benefits if one-off grants or awards are earned by the artist.  

Superannuation

Urgent need for implementing superannuation for artists. Like other working people, artists and other art professionals need superannuation in order to have some retirement income Artists should have a right to superannuation. 

For visual artists presenting an exhibition, the question of super contributions on the artist fee they receive for the commissioning or loan of their work is not clear. In paragraph 84 of SGR 2005/1 it is ruled that a painter does not perform or present an exhibition. However visual artists are likely to be included within the meaning of section 12(8)(a):

“a person who is paid to perform or present, or to participate in the performance or presentation of, any music, play, dance, entertainment, sport, display or promotional activity or any similar activity involving the exercise of intellectual, artistic, musical, physical or other personal skills”.

The Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth) should be amended to change the word "display" to "exhibition" in Section 12(8)(a), expanding definitions to include visual artists and craft and design practitioners. Paragraph 84 of SGR 2005/1 should be deleted to remove the ruling that a painter does not perform or present an exhibition. 

Taxation 

While prizemoney donors receive a tax concession, artists carry a tax burden. Art prizes, fellowships and government grants should all be tax exempt.

Tax deductible buy art incentives for collection and support of the arts. We had discussions about tax and bringing back the tax incentives for people to buy art. I know that currently organisations can do that but we recommend extending that to individuals as well. 

The instant asset write-off threshold was extended during the pandemic. It should continue. And that tax deductibility should be more widely advertised by the arts community.  If the tax deductible amount was increased, then you would find a lot more large scale businesses would engage in more purchasing of art and increase the marketplace of money being spent on the art in Australia.  

Reform the Australian Government Cultural Gifts Program or Tax Incentive for the Arts Fund. Donations to the fund are being dictated/held up by the cost of the valuations. As it currently stands it is difficult for artists to donate to the fund, we are not earning much to start with so to ask for a work worth more than $10,000 is pretty steep. Meanwhile, when a collector decides to donate one of my works, I am contacted by the valuers to check the value and asked to supply information supporting that value. It feels like I am doing the work of the valuers .... once again for no money. I understand these things are difficult to quantify and need to be verified. We have already been paid for the work and of course the donor wants to receive a good valuation for the donation. It can be good for an artist to have their work in public collections but sometimes the expectations of donors of the value can be a bit surprising!. It's pretty confusing being told your work is worth 3 times what they paid but somehow you still can't sell other work at a fraction of that value. It just seems that once again the only one not making anything out of the process is the artist.

Education and training

We need for development opportunities for artists - with technology moving so quickly - how do we as artists hit that innovation requirement (that is often in grant applications) and upskill when we don’t have access to training for these skills/marketing/social media. 

Australian Curriculum: visual arts mandated across all schools. Not as a sideline (i.e. primary, high school and university). Entrench the value of art in schools. We need artist employed as art teachers (particularly fresh graduates art students)

Increased support for training of safe practices, and a lot of independent artists don't currently have access to that.  

Opportunities/mentorship (Mentor/Mentee) between Professional and Emerging artists (focused on arts business related practices, commissioning and working as successful artist).

There's a lot of responsibility on the artist to get budgets right and we are not necessarily taught those business and financial management skills at university. 

There's a bit of an onus on the institutions and organisations to give out the funding to make sure that the budgets they are approving are actually sustainable and achievable, it means that a lot of arts funding just goes to administration..  

We need basic accounting guidelines for artists to work out their project costs.

I actually took a loss on a piece of public art because I had to get my insurance which was about $1,000 and this small piece of public art was only paying me $500. I thought I would have my name out there but it wasn't worth it. 

Cultural policy needs to speak to education as well. I didn't learn how to write grants at art school and I didn't learn about being a professional artist there.

Rarely artists are employed in a situation where you are charging by the hour, you are often accounting for a project where you are going for a commission for instance and that if you don't cover all your bases you can come out without covering the entire amount of the commission project and making any money. So it would also be very good on NAVA's behalf to also supply some accounting templates for artists and all the sorts of things that go into factoring in your expenses in a project alongside the resources the guidelines for what artists should earn.

Fellowships

Fellowships address the ‘mid-career desert’ where there are fewer existing opportunities for visual arts, craft and design practitioners. They allow the artist the security to explore the next major developmental step in their practice and seek opportunities to enhance their reputations, build professional relationships and consolidate their careers. 

Mid-career artists find it increasingly difficult to extend their practice and take necessary risks, to make time for skills development and experimentation. Fellowships give artists support at a crucial time in their development. 

Support excellence and the special role of artists and their creative collaborators

We fund art because it's a collective good, a part of public infrastructure and a civil right. We need a cultural policy that celebrates and values artistic practice as a job of work, that doesn’t rely on artists being impoverished and that recognises the unique role arts and culture plays in society.

We need to empower artists to develop their practice, to continue to challenge the status quo, to invent new ways of being, doing and thinking and to give voice to urgent issues of our time. We also need to understand that great work does not emerge from thin air. The process of making it, where and how it's developed and who with takes time, money and a high level of interdisciplinary thinking and planning. Supporting the process of making is equally important as the end product. It strengthens our connections with our community, expands our reach across business, industry and international networks and enables new ideas to thrive. 

Intellectual Property

Reform and changes to intellectual property and licensing to strengthen artists’ copyrights. One of our members mentioned government departments licensing agreements that are their standards are very heavy in benefitting the licence holder rather than the artist and there should be reform across the board to protect artists’ right as well as Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property (ICIP). We also talked about some sort of reform to protect artists' rights and possibly even call out people who are not doing the right thing.

Artists in Residence programs

Create paid pathways for artists to visit schools and bring art to life. This could be combined with regional residencies.

Artists in residence programs run through every LGA that are state or federal government funded. Those artists in residence work with the councils, advise the council, participate and enact programs within council. It would create programs for the mental health and wellbeing of the local constituents. It creates employment for artists like paid artists in residence programs but that is someone who works in and with councils. 

Housing and planning reform

Prioritise affordable space for artists in urban and regional master planning.

Include artists and arts workers within definitions of cohorts eligible for affordable housing

We need affordable housing and planning related reform to support the spaces that artists need. Reforms to land use planning and infrastructure contributions.

Artists are engaged in creating place and the need for that to cross over with other industry policies, like rent caps.

Cultural infrastructure for artists space to practice and live in a range of spaces that are fit-for-purpose. Acknowledgement of arts practice by Centrelink and Social Housing. Policy that includes cultural benefit in new builds and public heritage buildings.

Percentage for public art or art within those developments in some way - such as live / work spaces for artists, exhibition spaces. This would enhance the amount of money being spent in the country on public art and the creation of new work and therefore roll over into work for artists.

Gentrification always pushes out the artists. We need subsidised rent for artists to live and work.

Space

Where can artists do their work? Build their practice sustainability over the long term?

There is a need to provision for studio spaces for artists to actually do what they need to do. Which is make art. We need polices to address not only the affordability of studio spaces, but the reality that there are no spaces even if you can afford them. There is a systemic lack of space / lack of accessible space / lack of appropriate spaces / lack of long term spaces. 

Institutions, local council galleries, should have a process where they can offer fee free spaces to exhibit their work not just for commercial purpose to show case cultural offerings and also more opportunities for local councils to give their vacant spaces for use for creative spaces especially in the long term.

Can we push for councils to make spaces available for artists? (Could there be a policy that assists them to do this? Covers the insurance and fit out from a federal level to make this sustainable in the long term? Approach councils to put in art studios - require this in major developments?

Access

Support artists, organisations and networks to address best practice across disability and access needs, CALD and BIPOC communities, ensuring we are accessible to all for all.

We need targeted pathways for people from low socio economic and neuro divergent backgrounds one solution enabling partnerships between institutions and disability employment services to provide opportunities, work opportunities, for artists living with disability and mental health issues.  Introduce a roll out mental health support and wellbeing similar to what happened during COVID by Support Act for the live music industry but in an ongoing way and to be assessed by all artists across art forms.

Creation of safe spaces for under represented artists.

Providing access to regional artist (training, employment, mentorship and residencies - i.e. national/interstate and international exhibitions).

Funding 

Increase funding of arts orgs so they can pay artists properly and fairly. Need to look at the whole ecosystem. 

Double the Australia Council’s funds for independent and small arts organisations and individual artists – recognising that it is the crucial engine room of the arts.

There is a broader acceptance of what an arts practice is these days compared with when Creative Australia was released. Are there then more artists? Are the figures raised adequate for the current expanded arts landscape?

Make funding provisions for artist-led initiatives so that they are recognised as innovators, leaders and change makers within the arts ecology.

Funding allocated for accessibility - access for support with writing, submissions, applications, participation. Grant application process to consider paid support for workload, ability and minimum pay rates. Funded emerging artist programs. Career Development Fund - build on this and allocate more funds to it. 

There is a huge need for injections of money into core operational funding for small to mediums and ARIs. We need stable organisational funding for visual arts spaces that support emerging artists. Too many grants are for ‘projects’ - orgs then chase their tails trying to concoct a project for a grant to survive - a position of crisis instead of strength

We need targeted strategies for increasing the reach into regional Australia, heaps of discussion. 

There is a real problem with the lack of support for emerging artists to show their work. The sense of being on your own if you are not from the right university, that might support you as alumni beyond graduation. Funding has been streamlined so less available for emerging artists who are now competing with very experienced artists when applying for grants and thus feel less hopeful. It’s impossible, uncompetitive in such a bigger pool of applicants. 

A lot of discussion about funding covering a lot of the hidden costs, such as insurance and also to provide enough funding to cover the cost of material or the cultural production so they can live off the funding.  

Provision for archive management for mid-late career artists. Particularly those who work in digital / photo media who have to deal with legacy technology. It’s a huge and expensive undertaking to safely preserve materials in temp controlled storage, and then transfer to current media, reprint or transpose etc

Boards and Advisory Groups

It would be great if artists can more easily be appointed to boards and demonstrate that they are “responsible persons”. Organisations that have DGR status have to appoint a majority of “responsible persons” to their board. This includes “members of a professional body which has a professional code of ethics and rules of conduct.” As NAVA has a Code of Practice which sets industry standards, and NAVA Premium Plus Members go through an application process to be approved, they should be recognised as “responsible persons”. 

Local artist ‘assemblies’ - groups of ‘arts practices of individuals and groups’ to devise Fees for service, award rate for artists, cross sectoral collaboration fees and conditions; development of  arts / culture policy based on creativity as critical thinking across disciplines to inform state and national creativity policy.

Australia Council Boards to comprise representatives from local Arts/Culture Assemblies answerable to local communities

Arts / Culture Assemblies to have equal representation from rural and remote communities with urban communities.

Arts Culture policy statements arising from Cross Sectoral: Discipline negotiations about creativity.

Culture

We need to shift the perception of artists. Art is a job. It’s a career. Artists need proper recognition that they are valid. 

It is important to value artists for their innovation and critical thinking as an active contribution to society.

Lead from the top - we need to see politicians visibly supporting visual arts, attending exhibitions, meeting artists, buying art - create a culture that values and promotes artists.

Provide opportunities for policy to be driven from the bottom up.

A ‘Creative considerations & Inclusion Officer(?)’ to be embedded/employed by all councils to be included in all decisions made, from galleries to planning, to business etc. Similar to a ‘Cultural Safety Officer’ that ensures First Nations Cultural practises are considered.

While this theme is centrality of the artist, there is a need to also make institutions stronger.

Culture underpins all policies and as such arts should not be siloed from other policies.