ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY
Leaders – % of LGAs within each state with
many or all types Artists residing
South Australia Northern Territory
Queensland Western Australia
Victoria Tasmania
New South Wales
suggest South Australia is unique to itself.
In short, the charts reveal that the states of
Victoria and NSW have richer endowments of
artists with a noticeable percentage of its LGAs
with concentrations of residing artists above the
national average. The charts also reveal that
Western Australia and Queensland have the highest
proportion of LGAs with zero or negligible artists
concentrations and are thus artistically / creatively
disadvantaged. In comparison the Northern Territory
and Tasmania have relatively high percentages of
advantaged LGAs (some and many groups). In
South Australia the distribution is approximately
a 60%/40% split between advantaged and
disadvantaged LGAs respectively.
Source: de Silva et al. (2018) 5 SCOPING ARTISTIC LOCATION BY
AREAS OF REMOTENESS
From these charts we identify four distinct
groupings. These groupings reflect (albeit
imperfectively) the environmental, population
and industry characterisations at the state level.
Specifically, the New South Wales and Victoria
artistic distribution is similar. Both economies are
dominated by the service-based industries such as
education and also have relatively high population
densities. The states of Queensland and Western
Australia are characterised by the natural resource
sector forming the second group. The third group
comprises Tasmania and Northern Territory. We Using ABS geographic classifications we analysed
the profile of residing artists utilising our five
classifications. Not surprisingly Major Cities contain
the highest percentage of leaders. This, combined
with the fact that they have the lowest percentage of
disadvantaged LGAs, reinforces the urban-regional
dichotomy, specifically, regional areas have lower
(relative) concentrations of artists. However, we
noted that Very Remote areas have relatively high
proportion of LGAs that are recognised to have some
form(s) of artists residing en masse – we believe this
may be capturing the indigenous artist population.
Australian LGAs 2016 THE NATIONAL LANDSCAPE
Lightest to Darkest:
No Artists to Concentrations of All Artist Types
In the figure above a spatial map of the national
artistic landscape is provided based on the five
classifications originally constructed. In general the
percentage of LGAs with zero or negligible artists
(disadvantaged) increases when moving from
major cities to remote areas, reinforcing the urban-
regional dichotomy referred to above.
More generally, the figure demonstrates that there
are a large number of LGA’s in Australia with
relatively high percentages of resident artists. Some
LGA’s have unique characteristics that likely draw
artists to those areas -whether economic, social or
aesthetic or some combination of all.
The national chart combined with the state profiles 6
support the view that inner cities tend to have higher
endowments of residing artists. However they show
a number of notable exceptions include Mt Alexander
(Central Victoria) and Byron (North NSW).
Source: de Silva et al. (2018) 6
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