Arts Law at the 2021 Desart Conference

The annual Desart Conference was held in Alice Springs on 30 and 31 March 2021. Everyone was delighted to attend after it went online last year. This conference was a mixture of face to face and online attendance. It went very well with a good positive atmosphere as the 100 or so attendees relished the opportunity to get together and meet face to face.

There were various recurring themes throughout the conference including embracing the digital world and training art centre workers. After art centres and other businesses were all forced online during lockdown it became apparent that there is room for growth in this area and a pressing need for art centres to embrace new technologies.

Arts Law gave two presentations at the conference. On the first day, Donna Robinson, Arts Law senior solicitor, spoke about cyber-security and the Australian Privacy Principles. She covered in detail the need to have adequate rules and procedures in place to ensure data security and protection of personal information and what steps can be taken to protect both organisations and individuals from cyber attack. On the second day John Waight, Artists In The Black Co-ordinator, gave a talk to art centre workers, many of whom are also artists, about the legal and cultural issues which affect them.

All in all it was a fantastic opportunity to get out and about and meet with arts centre workers, managers, Desart staff and other stakeholders.  We are looking forward to seeing more of you all throughout the year.