Scattered throughout remote Australia are numerous community art centers that support the work of more than 4500 Indigenous artists. They fulfill a diverse and complex variety of cultural, economic and social roles--as dealers, galleries, wholesalers, intercultural mediators, art schools and community art spaces. Art centers are the first point of contact for anybody seeking access to or information about artists and their communities. In buying and selling artworks they aim to maximize financial returns to the artists and to ensure that the artworks are presented with integrity and accurate documentation. Art centers have been involved in commercial and non-commercial exhibitions from Helsinki to New York, Cuba, and the Russian Federation, and dozens of cities and countries in between.

There is no standard model for art centers. The key factor that distinguishes them from any other organization trading in Indigenous arts and crafts is that they are owned and controlled by local Indigenous people. They may be independently incorporated associations or function under the auspices of larger bodies such as community councils. Some begin life as women's centers and continue predominantly to support women's activities; in other places the majority of artists are men, or both men and women access the center equally. A minority of art centers are located in towns, for example, Ngunga Designs in Derby (WA), Jukurrpa and Papunya Tula in Alice Springs, Warba Mirdawaji in Roeburne (WA), Mimi in Katherine (NT). Most are in remote communities, as far as 800 kilometers from the nearest regional center.

Art centers facilitate and encourage the production of a wide range of arts and crafts, in both traditional and introduced media. They provide artists with materials, information, and access to professional development. Purchasing artworks or taking them on consignment, they market and promote artists and their works. More generally they affirm and promote the value of local culture and contribute to community life in a wide variety of ways, through special projects and through assisting their communities to document their past and present socio-cultural activities. They provide employment and training for local staff, and give artists the opportunity to expand their knowledge and experience through travel beyond their community. They provide services to outside individuals and organizations such as arranging copyright clearances, responding to requests for information about artists and their work, and facilitating visits to the community.

Currently there are more than forty-five centers located in central Australia, the Top End (NT), and northern Western Australia. These centers are serviced by two peak organizations--Desart Inc. and the Association of Northern, Kimberley, and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists (ANKAAA)-­which operate as regional resource centers for central and northern Australia respectively. Although art centers should not be judged or compared solely in financial terms, it is one way of broadly quantifying the scale of their activities. The smallest centers (Kaltjiti, Titjikala, Iwantja, Ngunga Designs, and Keringke) sell less than $100,000.00•worth of arts and crafts each year. Most sell between $100,000.00 and $150,000.00 worth of product annually (for fxample, Ikuntji, Warlukurlangu. Warumpi, Tiwi Designs, Jilamara, and Munupi).

A small number of very large centers (Injalak, Buku-Larrnggay Mulka, and Papunya Tula) support more than 200 artists on a regular or occasional basis and have sales of more than $550,000.00 per annum. Variation in size is influenced by a range of factors: the size of the community in which the center is located; the number of practicing artists; the facilities and resources available to house the center and service artists; and the economic value of the art center product. For example paintings are generally sold for higher prices and generate: greater returns than fiber-work and textiles, and some products require more capital investment or are more labor intensive than others.

For artists working with art centers, culture is inseparable from life and art. In nearly every community serviced by an art center, unemployment for Indigenous residents is higher than 90 per cent, literacy and numeracy rates are low and income comes primarily from government benefits, occasionally boosted by royalties from mining or tourism. The sale of arts and crafts provides both an avenue for cultural expression and an opportunity to earn income. Artists rarely perceive a conflict commerce and culture. An art work may have been produced for the market, and is therefore 'public', but it is also a social artifact reflecting culture, aspirations and spirituality.

The first art center was established by Ernabella mission in 1949, but the next did not follow until after 1970. In the 1970s and 1980s community councils and artists approached the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council or the Department of Aboriginal Affairs for funding to employ staff and establish buildings to act as centers for the artists. They met with varying degrees of success. In 1991 the newly formed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) took over responsibility for funding art centers and the Arts and Crafts Support Strategy (ACISS) program was established. ATSIC currently provides essential operational funding to more than thirty-five centers through NACISS (formerly ACISS), now a national program.

With changes in technology and an increasing worldwide interest in Indigenous cultures and products. art centers have had to become increasingly sophisticated in all aspects of service delivery. and mediation. Many art centres are now servicing an international market, soliciting commissions, forming partnerships to present exhibitions and projects, maintaining Web sites and promoting Aboriginal art and culture to a worldwide audience. In the 1990s art centers became increasingly proactive in developing projects to promote their artists and meet needs articulated by them, such as participation in native title claims.

Art centers have played a crucial role in facilitating communication and the flow of artworks and cultural product between artists in remote Australia and the market in the wider world. Art centers allow Aboriginal artists to achieve equity, to make choices about what they produce, and to exert control over the representation of their work and their level of interaction with the market place. The art center model has proved effective in supporting, through changing circumstances, the activities of thousands of artists in the bush.