Advocacy – Page 3 – LARSEN

Have your say on the Modern Awards Review

Due next Monday (4 December 2023), the Modern Awards Review 2023-2024 is a pivotal opportunity to improve workplace rights and entitlements for the arts and cultural sector.

In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it consultation period, the Fair Work Commission has invited submissions from artists, arts workers and organisations to investigate potential gaps in arts and cultural sector employment terms and remuneration.

And another thing: on profiles and platforms

Preparing to teach a recent workshop on building an artist or author brand made me realise how much my approach to my own brand and online profile has changed over the last several years.

That feeling has been exacerbated over this last awful month, in which the social media spaces I have held in such esteem have become sites for both community making and lonely making, action and distraction, truth-telling and shadow-banning, finding and losing of trust.

It’s been a timely reminder that our online profiles are political – regardless of whether we using them to share political content or politicise our silence.

Ally is a verb

Yesterday in Tarntanya/Adelaide, a blood test took me over the road from Pirltawardli (Possum Park). In need of some nature, I attempted to walk the edge of one of three golf courses in that part of the city. Ten minutes later, I left in tears. The glaring normalcy of the scene, of exclusively white golfers in a privileged place of safety and leisure, felt surreal and gross in a week that the world is in literal and metaphorical flames.

And another thing: less is (still) necessary

On the one-year anniversary of my #LessIsNecessary campaign, my latest instalment of ‘and another thing’ is about our ongoing workforce crisis and the regressive nonsense of employers wanting to punish workers for standing up for their rights.

Doing it differently: fit-for-purpose governance models

I enjoyed rabble-rousing about how we could (and should) be doing governance differently with Cecilia Anthony and Diversity Arts Australia’s Lena Nahlous for Creative Australia’s Governance Conversations webinar series in July 2023.

And another thing: South Australia, I protest

As of this month, South Australia now has the country’s most severe penalties for those engaging in peaceful protests.

My latest ‘and another thing’ vlog protests SA’s shameful new anti-protest laws.

Tears for peers: the hidden costs of arts funding

Across Australia, hundreds of arts organisations are currently awaiting the outcome of expressions of interest for four-year funding from Australia Council for the Arts. In Warrang/Sydney meeting-rooms, teams of subcontracted industry advisors are being assembled in their respective artforms to advise Council on which applications are eligible to go through to second and final stage of their decision-making process.

And another thing: on banning book bans

Book lovers, prepare to get riled up. My latest ‘and another thing’ vlog is about the book bans in Dakota and Florida that could put teachers and librarians in prison just for doing their jobs.

And another thing: reviving Australian cultural policy

So, Australia has a brand-new National Cultural Policy. And, you know what? I think it’s pretty great.

My latest ‘and another thing’ vlog walk the line between cautious optimism and being a critical friend.

National Cultural Policy revives unfamiliar hope

Yesterday’s National Cultural Policy launch, dubbed Revive by the Federal Government, promised ‘a new era for Australia’s arts, entertainment and cultural sector’ and delivered much-needed optimism at a time when the stakes for artists, arts organisations and audiences have never been so high.