A 1980s cost-of-living crisis gave Australia a thriving arts program – could we do it again?

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Open Access

Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Nantsou, Izabella
dc.date.accessioned	2026-01-23T04:54:22Z
dc.date.available	2026-01-23T04:54:22Z
dc.date.issued	2025	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34762
dc.description.abstract	The cost-of-living crisis is hitting the arts hard. Artists struggle to survive on poverty wages and audiences are getting priced out. This challenge is not unprecedented. In the 1980s, another cost-of-living crisis sparked a bold and imaginative model for embedding artists into the everyday rhythms of working life. This article reflects on the Art and Working Life program, an historic community arts program managed by the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. It examines how the program responded to a previous cost of living crisis and the conditions necessary to revive such a program today.	en
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.publisher	The Conversation	en
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0	en
dc.subject	trade unions	en
dc.subject	Australia Council	en
dc.subject	Australian Council of Trade Unions	en
dc.subject	cultural policy	en
dc.subject	neoliberalism	en
dc.subject	community arts	en
dc.title	A 1980s cost-of-living crisis gave Australia a thriving arts program – could we do it again?	en
dc.type	Article	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.64628/AA.fpjufnseu
dc.type.pubtype	Publisher's version	en
usyd.faculty	SeS faculties schools::Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences	en
usyd.department	Theatre and Performance Studies	en
workflow.metadata.only	No	en