Arts education on the “endangered” list in Australia
As a result of COVID-19 restrictions, most planned arts activities in Australia were cancelled or severely modified to the point of being unrecognisable in 2020. This was across the board, affecting all modes of artistic expression. By the end of April, more than $340 million in lost work had been reported to the ilostmygig website.
As many in the arts sector are painfully aware, the federal, state and territory governments offered little or no assistance, leaving many thousands of arts and entertainment workers on sub-poverty dole payments. This has been an extraordinarily long and difficult time for artistic communities to survive.