A Moroccan artist living in Australia

The ability of artists to survive in Australia has been the subject of the Throsby Report and a census study commissioned by the Australia Council. Writing on the ArtsHub website, Paul Isbel has penned an article called  “The lowdown on living as an artist in Australia”  which outlines the facts and numbers about artists working throughout the country. It is quite rare for such a large research project on working artists to be undertaken – here is a quote from the article:

Here are some numbers to wrap your head around. There are 44,000 artists working in Australia today. In a population of 22.6 million, that means one person in every 513 is a working artist. If there are 1,000 kids at your school, two will end up making a living with their art. Look around. Can you spot them? Look for a girl and a boy, because they split nearly equally male and female, 56% to 44%. Look for a musician. A quarter of all working artists are musicians. Look for those who were born in Australia. Three out of every four artists working in Australia were born in Australia.

Even more entertaining and ‘to the point’ is an animated PowerPoint video produced by the Australia Council to quickly sum-up all the research – Enjoy the music and the show, it should be on TED!