AITB Outreach to the Western Australian Goldfields and the Great Victoria Desert

In August, Arts Law visited the Goldfields region and Great Victoria Desert areas of Western Australia as part of our Artists in the Black (AITB) program. Arts Law was accompanied by Morgan Lane, partner at Colin Biggers and Paisely.

We visited ArtGold in Kalgoorlie Boulder, delivering a workshop on copyright and contracts. The artists were varied in their practice areas and the different questions posed. We look forward to visiting ArtGold again in the near future.We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Goldfields Language Centre where we learned more about the diversity of languages spoken in the region and gave some advice about legal issues affecting the organisation.

We then drove from Kalgoorlie to Laverton to visit artists and members of the Waalitj Foundation at the Laverton Cross Cultural Association, where we delivered a workshop on copyright, contracts, Indigenous Cultural and intellectual property, and wills. A few artists had their wills drafted.

After driving back to Kalgoorlie, we then boarded a small mail plane from Kalgoorlie to Tjuntjuntjara which is located only 200kms from the South Australian border in the Great Victoria Desert. We were treated to amazing aerial views of the endless desert landscape and salt lakes on a perfect clear day.

Here we visited the Spinifex Art Project, and Arts Law was welcomed by several artists working on large scale canvas paintings, in various styles and colours. We drafted many wills for the artists, some who only spoke their traditional language of Pitjantjatjara.

The next day was more travel as we caught another small mail plane en route to Alice Springs, and were fortunate enough to fly directly over amazing desert scenery, as well as iconic landmarks such as Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Tjoritja (West MacDonnell National Park).

It was an amazing trip full of amazing scenery, breath-taking artworks and many flights. We were delighted to meet so many different artists really engaged in their practice, wanting to learn about their rights.

Arts Law’s work in drafting wills for Aboriginal artists in Western Australia is generously supported by Impact100 WA.