What is the National Association for the Visual Arts?
The National Association for the Visual Art (NAVA) is the peak body representing and advancing the professional interests of the Australian visual arts and craft sector. Since its establishment in 1983, NAVA has been very influential in bringing about policy and legislative change to encourage the growth and development of the visual arts and craft sector and to increase professionalism within the industry. It has also provided direct service to members through offering expert advice, representation, resources and a range of other services.
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What is NAVA’s Role?
NAVA undertakes advocacy and lobbying, research, policy and project development, data collection and analysis, professional representation and service provision.
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Who are the members?
NAVA's constituency includes visual artists, craft/design practitioners, other arts professionals including curators, agents, educators, arts writers and critics, arts administrators, art librarians & conservators, and a range of organisations including public, artist run and commercial galleries, arts agencies, arts service organisations, educational institutions, arts publications, manufacturers and retailers.
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How is NAVA structured?
NAVA is a company limited by guarantee with about 3,000 individual and organisational members and 1000 student affiliates. NAVA is run by a Board of up to nine directors, five elected by the members representing the interests of visual arts practitioners and organisations and drawn from at least four states/territories, and up to four co-opted members with other specialist skills in the areas of law, business development and fundraising, politics and strategy, marketing and promotion & media.
Current Board Members: NAVA’s Chair is Anne Graham, the well respected artist and academic. The elected members are David Broker (Qld), Alasdair Foster (NSW), Kate McMillan (WA) and Matthew de Moiser (Vic). The co-opted members are Anne Graham (NSW), Judy Sullivan (ACT) with Peter Mitchell acting as Honorary Treasurer and Company Secretary.
NAVA’s patrons are Professor David Throsby, eminent cultural economist and NAVA’s Founding Chair and Pat Corrigan AM, arts philanthropist.
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Representation by NAVA
NAVA is the founder, and acts as the secretariat and spokesbody for the National Visual Arts and Craft Network (NVACN), a confederation of the peak networks which collaborate in advocacy and joint initiatives.NAVA is also is convenor and secretariat for the Arts Education Roundtable.
NAVA has links to a broad range of other arts organisations both within Australia and in other parts of the world.
NAVA is a member of:
- ArtsPeak, the confederation of national arts service organisations,
- the Council for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS)
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What work is NAVA currently involved in?
- Establishing an international network of art service and advocacy organisations
- Lobbying federal and state governments to implement all the legislative and regulatory recommendations of the Myer Inquiry into the Contemporary Visual Arts and Craft Sector
- Seeking removal of “Sedition” legislation and the introduction of legislation to protect Artists’ Freedom of Expression
- Campaigning for changes to the way that visual education is provided in schools
- Researching artists’ fees and exhibition costs & lobbying for a new allocation of funding for this purpose
- Lobbying for the introduction of Artists Resale Royalty Right legislation
- Seeking the amendment of the Non-Commercial Losses tax legislation to exempt the arts sector
- With other arts sector groups, lobbying for the introduction of Indigenous Communal Moral Rights legislation
- Lobbying for ArtStart - recognition by Centrelink of artists’ professional status and introduction of arts small business training schemes
- With Desart and ANKAAA researching and writing a Indigenous Art Commercial Code of Conduct
- writing the Theory in Practice set of booklets on professional practice for artists
- Promoting the practical application of the 2nd edition of the Code of Practice for the Australian Visual Arts and Craft Sector containing new scales of fees
- NAVA and AbaF (Australia Business Arts Foundation) have joined forces to develop a new web portal for visual arts and crafts practitioners.
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Some of NAVA’s recent achievements
Policy and Legislation
- Successfully lobbied for a Federal Government Inquiry into the Contemporary Australian Visual Arts and Craft Sector which, in 2003 delivered an increase in federal and state/territory government funding of $39 million over four years. This was renewed in 2007 for another four years at the slightly increased level of $24.7 million from the federal government, matched by state/territory governments.
- Secured agreement from the federal government for $250,000 to be allocated for a study of visual education from school to tertiary level, also including lifelong learning provisions by galleries and service organisations. This study is intended to identify areas for change to achieve competency in visual communication for everyone in the community and improved pathways into a career for art, craft and design professionals.
- With the support of other artform organisations, NAVA has negotiated a public ruling from the Australian Taxation Office which adopts arts industry criteria for the assessment of income tax entitlements of professional practising artists (with Arts Law and expert legal advisers Judy Sullivan, Jill Savage & Delia Browne
- Successfully lobbied government for amendment of the Non-Commercial losses legislation to allow most professional artists to claim their arts expenses
- Successfully lobbied government for the adoption of Artists Moral Rights legislation in Australia
Industry Support
- Established Viscopy, the visual arts copyright collecting agency
- Developed a visual arts export strategy with Austrade & the Australia Council
- Established an Indigenous Arts Officer position to promote the interests of the Indigenous visual arts sector especially to government
- Developed a Public Art Register for the NSW Ministry for the Arts
- Successfully lobbied for the maintenance in public ownership of Artbank, the national contemporary Australian art collection for loan
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NAVA’s Professional Services
NAVA’s Grant Programs
- Two small grants programs:
- The Janet Holmes a Court Artists’ Grant
- The NSW Artists’ Marketing Grant
- Awards through:
- The Freedman Foundation Travelling Scholarship for Emerging Artists
- The Windmill Trust
- Ripe: Art & Australia/ANZ Private Bank Award for Emerging Artists
- The Artists’ Benevolent Trust- Ignition Prize for graduating students
Codes and Professional Resources produced by NAVA
- Visual Arts Net, the website for the Australian visual arts and craft sector
- The Code of Practice for the Australian Visual Arts and Craft Sector, Edition 2
- Valuing Art, Respecting Culture: Protocols for Working with the Indigenous Australian Visual Arts and Craft Sector.
- Getting Art There, an Artist’s Marketing Manual
- Money for Visual Artists: NAVA's Guide to Competitions, Awards and Prizes,
- Professional Practice Kit
- The Big Picture: A Planning Matrix for the Visual Arts research report analysing the impact of five major forces shaping the Australian visual arts and craft sector
- “Where There’s a Will: Estate Planning for Visual Artists" with the Arts Law Centre of Australia, commissioned by the Australia Council
- National visual arts/craft professional practice module for the tertiary education sector on-line
- Ideas for Policy and Legislation for the Visual Arts and Craft Sector arising out of the Visual Arts Industry Guidelines Research Project
- Outside the Gumtree Report on the needs of non-English speaking background artists and their contribution to Australian culture
- Report on artists' childcare needs in Australia
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NAVA Professional Development Forums
- 2006 ran The Future Looks so Inciting forum as part of Artists Week at the Adelaide Arts Festival
- 2005 ran For Fee or Favour, a public forum as part of the arc festival in Queensland, followed by an on-line forum on artists fees and exhibition costs as part of NAVA’s research
- 2004 to celebrate NAVA’s 20th anniversary, staged Untitled 2004: the Last Art Forum, an all-day event as part of Artists’ Week at the Adelaide Festival, and subsequently ran an on-line forum Who Will Speak Truth to Power?
- 2001 – organised the Canberra forum A Fairer Deal: the Way Forward for the Visual Arts and Craft Sector launching the Code of Practice
- 2000 - Mirror or Mercury: a Millennial Shift in Australian Visual Culture? as part of Artists' Week, Telstra Adelaide Festival
- 1998 – ran Art of Site Art of Mind - Speculations on the Future of the Visual Arts and Crafts in Australia
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How is NAVA funded?
NAVA’s core operations are funded by the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council, the Federal Government’s arts funding and advisory body and by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. It also has a triennial grant from Arts NSW.Otherwise it generates income from:
- membership subscriptions
- sales of products and services
- project grants from public and private bodies
- sponsorship (some in kind)
- donations from arts benefactors
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What does NAVA offer its members?
- Information, referrals and expert advice
- The NAVA Quarterly industry journal
- A fortnightly email news bulletin listing opportunities and NAVA news updates
- A Membership section on NAVA’s website: www.visualarts.net.au with up to date information on jobs and other opportunities and a chat facility exclusively available to NAVA members
- Concession price entry to all major national and state/territory galleries and discounts on more that 200 services and products in the Services Directory including some gallery bookshops
- Discounts on its publications:
- Powerful advocacy and lobbying to bring about positive changes to advance visual arts and craft
- A nationally recognised voice representing the interests of visual arts and craft
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Who can I speak to at NAVA?
Executive Director – Tamara Winikoff
General Manager – Samatha Wild
Projects Manager – Merrilee Kessler
Artist Career Project Manager - Cassandra Parkinson
Communications & Promotions Officer – Owen Leong
Communications & Web Officer – Karen-Anne Coleman
Web and Technical Support Manager – Maissa Alameddine
Membership and Administrative Officers – Evelyn Liong & Laura Stekovic
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