Over the last year, Australian artists saw their livelihoods shredded by COVID-19. For culturally diverse artists, who were already marginalised, the financial hit has been magnified.
But the arts faced another earthquake in 2020. Influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement in the US, Australia’s creative industries faced a reckoning with representation. With 39% of Australians identifying as culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD), debates about whether our arts were truly representing reached a new intensity.