Total grants and funding for Aboriginal arts in Australia FY 2017-2022

In the 2022 financial year, First Nations arts and culture received a total of 5.5 million Australian dollars investment from the Australia Council for the Arts. This was around 100,000 Australian dollars less than what was granted in the previous year, however, first nations projects were also funded through other arts funding categories.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

There is great diversity within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, and this is perhaps most apparent in the artforms practiced by each individual clan group. Art is a means for Indigenous people to record, share, and express spiritual stories, and an important connection to culture. The importance and cultural value of Indigenous art is also recognized by non-Indigenous Australians and it continues to gain popularity internationally. As a means of further supporting and developing indigenous arts in Australia, dedicated funding opportunities are available to Indigenous artists and Indigenous run projects. 

Indigenous languages

When British settlers colonized Australia in 1788 there were over 700,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in Australia. They represented around 500 tribes and over 250 individual languages spoken, each with their own oral histories, culture, and belief systems. Today, only around 120 are still spoken and the majority are critically endangered. Indigenous languages Djambarrpuyngu, Pitjantjatjara, and Walpiri are among the those with the largest number of speakers, although, none of them have more than 5,000 speakers each. According to results of the National Indigenous Languages Survey only 13 Indigenous languages are still actively passed on to children. However, some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are actively relearning the languages of their ancestors and use of Indigenous languages remains relatively strong in remote areas.