BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Have you ever felt like forging a career in the arts is particularly hard?
Perhaps you’re exhausted from the burnout that comes with realising you haven’t reached perfection (and, inevitably, never will). Or from navigating an unstable income with unpredictable working hours. You’re far from alone in facing these challenges.
According to one survey, more than half of Australia’s music and creative industry workers who responded said they were suffering from burnout and fatigue, and struggling with the cost of living. Many artists in Australia work below the poverty line — but they’re still expected to produce work at the highest-possible standard. It may involve their body, in the case of a singer’s voice or a dancer’s movement; or even their identity, as so many artists use their creativity to express an emotion or experience.
If it all sounds like too much for any person to take, that’s because it is. And counsellor Aimee Davies wants more people to know about it. After all, awareness can help drive change — and that’s the motivation behind Aimee’s free event at the Museum of Brisbane.
Aimee — who founded Hey Mate to support artists’ mental health — is facilitating a free public panel and networking event featuring industry leaders from a broad range of fields.
It’s called Creative Conversations: Mental Wellbeing & The Arts, and the panel includes experts from QMusic, Queensland Theatre, Museum of Brisbane, Griffith Film School, and Australasian Dance Collective. They’ll be talking about the burnout and emotional strain that can occur across the entire arts sector — a common experience, and one that requires urgent consideration.
Aimee (pictured below) talks to CutCommon about why the arts is a particularly challenging industry, and what Australia can do about it.
That includes you, because as Aimee says, “you deserve to be well, and you don’t have to earn that by burning out first”.
Aimee, when you reached out to me about your upcoming event, you described it as “the first event of its kind in Queensland focused entirely on mental health across the creative industries”. This is a huge achievement. Why was it important to you to create an event addressing broad-level discussions spanning music, theatre, dance, and screen?
It was important because these conversations are long overdue and they deserve a platform that brings everyone to the table. Artists across music, theatre, dance, screen, and beyond often face similar pressures: isolation, burnout, financial precarity, and emotional exhaustion. But too often, we talk about these challenges in silos. Creative Conversations is about breaking that down and creating shared momentum; a space where we can come together not just to name the struggles, but to celebrate what’s possible when we prioritise wellbeing across the sector.
For me, this event is about community, not crisis. It’s about highlighting the people and organisations already doing great work in this space, while also sending a clear message that mental health is not a niche concern — it’s central to the future of the creative industries.
We need happy, healthy creatives. We need supported, sustainable careers. And we need to be having these conversations in public with honesty, hope, and a commitment to doing things differently.
What do you feel are some of the common factors that underpin mental health and wellbeing in the arts — especially when there are so many differences between each discipline and its associated industry culture?
Such a great question — and one we’ve thought about a lot in shaping this event.
While the day-to-day realities of working in music, theatre, dance, or screen can look very different, the emotional landscape is often surprisingly similar.
Across disciplines, creatives are navigating things like precarious work, performance pressure, identity-driven labour, and the challenge of sustaining passion in environments that can be under-resourced or undervalued.
There’s also a shared culture of pushing through or keeping going at all costs, which can make it hard to pause, reflect, or ask for help.
But what underpins wellbeing across all these spaces isn’t just what’s hard, it’s also what’s possible. Connection. Purpose. Creative flow. A sense of belonging. These are powerful protective factors, and they’re often built through community, peer support, and environments that allow people to be seen as whole humans, not just outputs.
That’s what we’re hoping to highlight — the common ground that gives us the opportunity to build more supported, sustainable careers together.
There are some pretty alarming statistics about mental wellbeing in the arts, with many workers still experiencing burnout, fatigue, and job insecurity. Why do you think the arts in Australia is such a challenging industry?
The arts can be one of the most rewarding industries but also one of the most personally demanding. What makes it uniquely challenging is the way creativity, identity, and livelihood are so deeply intertwined. For many artists, their work is not just a job, it’s a reflection of who they are, which means the stakes are often emotional as well as financial.
Layer that with systemic instability like short-term contracts, inconsistent income, competitive funding models, and limited long-term pathways, and it creates an environment where burnout can thrive.
There’s also this pervasive pressure to be constantly visible, constantly producing, constantly available often without adequate support. And for early-career and independent creatives, that pressure is even more intense.
Despite growing advocacy, the infrastructure hasn’t quite caught up. The good news is we’re seeing more people speaking openly about these issues, and more appetite to embed wellbeing into the core of how we work. That shift is happening. We just need to keep building the momentum.
Despite experiences such as burnout and depression, arts workers may feel pressured to push past their limits and keep going anyway — whether in pursuit of perfection, or pursuit of financial stability. What do you think the Australian arts industry needs to change in order to prevent this environment and culture for its workers?
We need to fundamentally reimagine what ‘success’ looks like in the arts, not just in terms of output or recognition, but in how we care for the people doing the work.
The culture of pushing through at all costs isn’t sustainable, and it shouldn’t be the norm. If we want thriving, resilient creative industries, we have to prioritise the health and safety of those within them.
That starts with funding models and leadership practices that actively value wellbeing. Project timelines need to include space for rest and recovery. Organisations need to normalise conversations about mental health and build support systems that are proactive, not reactive. Freelancers and independents — who make up a huge part of the sector — need access to the same kind of care infrastructure that salaried workers often have.
We also need to stop celebrating burnout as dedication. The most powerful, long-lasting creative work comes from artists who are supported, not stretched thin.
Shifting this culture will take all of us funders, producers, institutions, and artists working together to centre care as a core value, not an optional extra.
On the opposite side of that, what do you think arts workers need to do when looking inward about how they can make changes to their own industry careers — specifically, changes that better respect their own wellbeing?
This is such an important question and one that doesn’t always have easy answers, especially when the pressures around us feel so big.
But there are things we can control, and that often starts with giving ourselves permission to value our wellbeing as much as our work.
For arts workers, that might mean redefining what success looks like on your own terms not by visibility, volume, or constant output, but by how aligned your work feels with your energy, values, and capacity.
It might mean setting clear boundaries, building in recovery time, or saying no to projects that compromise your health, even if they look good on paper.
It also means building community. Prioritising relationships that are honest, generous, and non-competitive. Leaning into peer support. Sharing resources. Asking for help.
Ultimately, looking inward is about recognising that your creativity and your wellbeing are not separate — they actually feed each other. Protecting your mental health isn’t stepping away from your practice; it’s part of sustaining it.
How would you encourage work-life balance for artists in Australia whose creative work is so often intertwined with their personal experience or identity?
This is one of the most complex parts of working in the arts because for so many creatives, the work is personal. When your job involves expressing your own story, identity, or emotions, the boundaries between work and life can blur very quickly. But that’s exactly why creating intentional space around your practice is so important.
I often encourage artists to develop rituals or routines that help them transition in and out of creative mode, just small things that signal to the nervous system: this is work, this is rest, this is just for me. That might be as simple as a post-rehearsal walk, a journal that’s not for public eyes, or having a separate creative outlet that’s purely for joy, not output.
It’s also about permission; allowing yourself to step back when the emotional toll is too high; to say ‘not right now’ and to trust that your creativity won’t disappear if you rest. And importantly, it’s about support — having people around you whether they’re peers, therapists, mentors, or loved ones who understand the emotional labour of your work and can help hold you when it gets heavy.
Work-life balance doesn’t have to mean separation, but it does mean care, intention, and the belief that your wellbeing is just as important as your art.
What do you hope early career artists will take away from your upcoming event, especially as they must lay the groundwork for a healthy and sustainable career ahead?
I hope they take away the understanding that their wellbeing is not something they have to trade for a creative career; that it’s not a choice between success and self-care.
Early career artists are often navigating uncertainty, comparison, financial stress, and huge emotional demands while trying to ‘prove themselves’. That pressure can feel isolating, but they are not alone and the industry is starting to shift.
My hope is that Creative Conversations shows them they are entering a community that cares — one that is actively working toward healthier, more sustainable ways of being in this space.
I want them to leave feeling seen, supported, and connected to others who believe you can build a creative life that supports both your passion and your health.
If there’s one message they take with them, I hope it’s this: you deserve to be well, and you don’t have to earn that by burning out first.
Hey Mate presents Creative Conversations: Mental Wellbeing & The Arts in the Museum of Brisbane, 5.30pm June 18. Tickets are free.
Image supplied.
Featured image via Unsplash/Nick Odnari.
