As we start 2026, the insights from last year’s UK Visual Arts Support Ecology Summit offer a timely reflection on the challenges and opportunities facing the creative sector.

Hosted by FRANK, CVAN, DACS, and a-n, the online event brought together artists, organisations, unions, and advocates to examine the pressing issues shaping the UK visual arts sector – from studio affordability, artist pay rates, and hidden labour to the developing use of AI and how this affects copyright. Across 4 breakout rooms, collaborative discussions explored their topics and considered ways to build on existing practices or test new approaches to make the arts ecology more equitable.

Watch the recorded sessions

Hidden labour: Fair pay and its unlevelled impact

Celina Loh from FRANK Fair Artist Pay led the conversation with Heather Peak from DASH (Disability Arts in Shropshire) and Helen Moore from SCAN (Scottish Contemporary Arts Network), exploring hidden labour – the unseen work that supports creative projects but often goes uncompensated.

• Fair pay as holistic support: Beyond financial compensation, fair practice encompasses time, clarity, care, access and equity, ensuring that artists can participate fully and sustainably.
• Consistency builds trust: Embedding access, training and fair pay into budgets, using clear contracts, and maintaining predictable workloads are more effective than one-off statements or policies. Repeated, transparent actions foster trust and strengthen relationships over time.
• Co-design and openness: Working with artists, rather than for them, means being honest about capacity, limitations and what you don’t know yet. Sharing responsibility across the team helps everyone feel supported and strengthens relationships, instead of relying on individual goodwill.
• Tension and power in practice: Policy, funder expectations, and project delivery often collide, creating pressure where access, care and fair workloads arrive too late; teams are stretched, processes are complex and hidden labour accumulates. Organisations can exercise power thoughtfully through transparency, advocacy, slowing down and relationship-building to create systems that support both vulnerability and resilience and enable meaningful change.
• Making hidden labour visible: Admin, fundraising, mediation, emotional support and self-advocacy are critical to project delivery but often go unrecognised. Recognising and resourcing this work ensures artists’ contributions are valued and strengthens the wider creative ecosystem.

Using FRANK Tools, including the Principles & Guidance and Fair Pay Calculator, the discussion focused on practical ways to make responsibilities explicit, reduce emotional labour and build fairer, more sustainable systems.

AI and copyright: Exploring how artists are navigating AI and what ‘responsible AI’ means in practice

DACS and guest speaker Beverley Hood, Artist & Lead of BRAID (Building Responsible AI Divides) led a discussion on the increasing presence of artificial intelligence in the arts. The group emphasised that there is no single pathway to responsible AI use. Artists must navigate a plurality of approaches, always with the option to choose whether and how to work with AI tools.

• Control over work: Artists need tools and frameworks to prevent their work from being used in AI training without consent.
• Transparency and ethics: Large tech platforms often operate opaquely, raising questions about environmental impact and ethical alignment.
• Skills and practice: Integrating AI into artistic practice requires ongoing dialogue and experimentation.

Artists retain agency and must be supported in making informed choices about AI, while the sector needs clearer frameworks and transparency to protect creators. 

Affordable studios: Community, purpose, and sustainability

Paula Orrell from CVAN and guest contributors, raised points about the importance of accessible studio spaces. Discussion points included different models of provision, from artist-led collectives to long-term leases, and the role of affordability in sustaining practice.

• Collective approaches: Shared financing and community-led models can support sustainable, affordable spaces.
• Purpose-driven provision: Studios should exist to enable artists’ practice and career development, not organisational agendas.
• Visibility and advocacy: Raising awareness about the role of studios in nurturing creative practice is essential to securing long-term support.
• Tools and frameworks: Initiatives like the Herbert Affordability Formula provide realistic benchmarks for rent, tied to artists’ actual earnings rather than market rates.

Affordable studios are more than workspaces – they are communities that sustain practice, foster collaboration, and enable artists to thrive. 

Paying artists: Standard rates for artists pay and the essentials of getting paid as an artist

Julie Lomax from a-n highlighted the long-standing campaign for fair pay, tracing it back to the Year of the Artist in 2000. The discussion focused on how organisations can ensure artists are paid fairly and consistently

• Safe spaces for advocacy: Artists need environments where they can discuss pay issues openly.
• Budgeting for fairness: Payment should be embedded into project budgets, ensuring equity regardless of organisational size.
• Standardised rates: Sector-wide guidance endorsed by major funders would simplify negotiations and promote fair compensation.

Recognising time and access needs: Fair pay is not only financial – it includes acknowledging the time and support required by artists, including those who are disabled or neurodiverse.

Achieving fair pay requires both structural solutions and a culture that values and respects artists’ time and labour.