Arts Law Travels to the Central Desert and Coober Pedy

Arts Law recently embarked on outreach trips to the Central Desert of Northern Territory (Tennant Creek, Epenarra and Canteen Creek Community) with Desart and to Coober Pedy in South Australia with Ku Arts.

During these trips Arts Law Senior Solicitor, Roxanne Lorenz provided education seminars on intellectual property and the importance of wills and drafted wills for artists.

For the Central Desert trip, Roxanne was joined by Elisabeth Sandbach from Arts Law partner pro bono law firm, Allens and Lara Dykun, Strong Business Program Officer at Desart. In Tennant Creek, we visited Barkly Regional Arts and Nyinkka Nyunyu and then travelled over 3.5 hours on a dirt road to visit Epenarra and Canteen Creek for a couple of days. Barkly Regional Arts travels out to these communities several times a month to deliver canvases and paints and collect finished works that go back to the art centre to be sold on the artists behalf.

At Nyinkka Nyunyu, in Tennant Creek, we met with the Tennant Creek Brio a mens group of artists that started out as an art therapy/outreach program but has gone much further with the artists enjoying recent commercial success. You can read more about the Brio here. This trip was the second trip Roxanne has made to Tennant Creek on behalf of Arts Law with Desart (with the previous trip happening in 2018). It was wonderful for Roxanne to reconnect with some of the artists she had visited previously. Roxanne was sad to learn that some of the established senior artists she had met with previously had passed away since that time. However, there was some comfort knowing they had their wills in place, meaning that any future sales of work or income from licensing deals would go to their beneficiaries in accordance with their wishes. This also makes it much easier for the art centre to deal with the sales of art on behalf of artists who have passed away.

In Coober Pedy, Ku Arts delivered the Strong Arts Program. The Strong Arts Program provided opportunities for First Nation artists to access information and build knowledge and confidence about navigating the art world. Over four days, artists participated in discussions with Arts Law, Indigenous Art Code, Copyright Agency, and Ku Arts, around the themes of intellectual property, wills, contracts, and general rights of artists. Running concurrently with discussions and one-on-one consultations, artists participated in ceramic workshops delivered by Adelaide-based ceramist Ashlee Hopkins. Artists learned the fundamental skills of hand-building objects using clay and later added colour and designs to their forms. You can see some wonderful photos from the outreach trip on Ku Arts’ website here.

Of these trip’s Roxanne said:

“It is such a privilege to travel to remote and regional areas on behalf of Arts Law and meet with and provide advice to artists. When you travel to these places you gain a whole new appreciation of the artworks that come from the region, the colours and patterns from the canvases come alive. We have so many talented Aboriginal artists working in these areas and thanks to our partnerships with support organisations such as Desart and Ku Arts, we are fortunate to be able connect with the and assist them.”