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https://www.aboriginalart.org.au/consumer-advice
https://japingkaaboriginalart.com/articles/buying-aboriginal-art
https://www.aboriginal-art-australia.com/aboriginal-art-library
https://mandelartgallery.com.au/blogs/mandel-art-gallery-blog/investing-in-aboriginal-art
A guide for collectors, by Australia's national association for Aboriginal art
Anyone considering an Aboriginal artwork, whether a first purchase or an addition to a long-held collection, benefits from understanding how the market actually works. The Aboriginal Art Association of Australia is Australia's national association for Aboriginal art. Its members are artists, art centres, galleries, valuers, conservators, framers, and trade businesses operating in every state and territory of Australia and overseas. The association advocates for ethical practice, fair trade, and cultural integrity across the industry, and for the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists to determine how their own work reaches the market.
This guide covers:
Some of the content is contested. The history of the Aboriginal art market includes real exploitation, and it includes a great deal of debate about how exploitation has been defined, by whom, and to what ends. We address both honestly. Buyers who understand the history — including the parts that are uncomfortable for everyone in the industry, not only for those routinely cast as villains — are better placed to make their own judgements about the works and the people in front of them.
Some of the content is unique to this guide. Few resources cover the full lifecycle of owning an Aboriginal artwork — not just the purchase, but the care, the insurance, the eventual valuation or donation. As the national association, AAAA's perspective spans the industry as a whole, including the parts that are sometimes spoken about and the parts that are not.
"The international success of Australian Aboriginal art has followed an incredible trajectory since the first artefacts were sold by their makers to private collectors more than a century ago. Contained within the lines, dots, and crosshatch lies the cultural authority of its creators, whose priority has been survival, keeping their culture alive, and passing it on to future generations."
— Adrian Newstead OAM, President of AAAA, valuer, and Aboriginal art specialist for 45 years
How the Aboriginal art market actually works
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists have been making art on their bodies, on cave walls, for ceremonial ground constructions and regalia, for at least 40,000 years. The market for Aboriginal art is around 150 years old. For most of that time the market could be characterised as ethnographic: objects of material culture passed through the hands of pastoralists, anthropologists, missionaries and traders, exchanged for trade goods, rations and utilitarian items in a manner considered of mutual benefit. During that 'ethnographic' period an item was considered 'real' if it was made for cultural use and traded only after that use — or 'fake', if it was made for the market. The only ethical question would have been whether the piece was stolen from its custodian, or taken after a clash of cultures such as a massacre, a person's death, or through a process of dispossession.
The commercial market for contemporary Aboriginal art is a different and much more recent phenomenon. It dates from the early 1980s. Understanding the gap between these two periods is the foundation for understanding everything else, including the protocols regarding ethics, authenticity and provenance that govern the market today.
The contemporary market traces its origins to Papunya, a settlement 240 kilometres northwest of Alice Springs. According to the dominant myth, it began in 1971, when the school teacher Geoffrey Bardon encouraged a group of senior men to translate their ceremonial designs onto board and canvas. Within a year the artists had formed Papunya Tula Artists, the first Aboriginal-owned art company in Australia. Almost every art centre since has followed its template: collectively owned, artist-governed, managed by non-Indigenous coordinators or advisers, underpinned in many cases by government funding, and acting as the link between remote communities and the wider market. Most of these art centres are located within the community itself, though Papunya Tula, which began operation in what was a community rife with internal conflict, operates from Alice Springs and services several communities through remote control.
The commercial scale of the market has grown accordingly. When the contemporary painting movement began at Papunya, the entire Aboriginal art market was worth less than $1 million; it took a decade to reach $2 million. By 2026, more than a dozen individual paintings by artists of renown had already exceeded that figure when offered at auction or through private sale.
Today there are around 140 Aboriginal-owned art centres across Australia, concentrated in the Northern Territory, Western Australia, South Australia, and Queensland. They are not galleries. They are community-controlled organisations, most registered as not-for-profits, that provide artists with materials, studio space, business administration, marketing, and access to the broader market. They sell directly to collectors, and they sell to galleries that exhibit and resell the work.
Alongside the artists who create works for community art centres sit hundreds of independent Aboriginal artists who paint for dealers, galleries and agents of their own choosing. Between them, and the buyer, sits the commercial layer of the market: galleries, dealers, auction houses, online platforms, and independent agents.
Above the commercial layer sit regional advocacy bodies and two peak organisations that shape ethical practice across the market, each with its own voluntary code of conduct for dealers.
Peak organisations
The Aboriginal Art Association of Australia (est. 1998). This is the national association for the industry, representing more than 300 independent artists. Its membership includes art centres, artist's agents, and more than 60 trade members across every state and territory. Members of AAAA must sign its Aboriginal Art Code and its Code of Business Practice, which set the standard for professional practice. The AAAA also accredits valuers, advocates on policy, and seeks to represent the industry's collective voice on the long-term health of the market.
The Indigenous Art Code (est. 2010). Members of the IAC must sign its own Code of Conduct. The IAC provides a complaints framework for signatory businesses. The Code does not certify authenticity, and its remit and effectiveness continue to be the subject of industry debate as its board and governance are principally dominated by representatives of art centres and government.
The prevailing rules and protocols of engagement in this market are not neutral. They have emerged from an alignment of interests between the arts bureaucracy, major collecting institutions, established galleries, auction houses, and art magazines. The framework that has resulted serves some participants well and works against others. Independent artists who choose not to work through community art centres, and the dealers who represent them, have historically been treated with a suspicion that the work itself does not warrant, and that often serves the commercial interests of those applying the standard. This guide returns to this question throughout.
For buyers, the practical takeaway is this. An ethical purchase is one where the artist had genuine agency in the transaction, was fairly compensated, and was represented in a manner they themselves endorsed. Art centres make verification straightforward by design. Independent dealers and other channels meet the same ethical standard through different mechanisms.
Regional advocacy bodies representing art centres
While many artists live outside of remote communities and work independently, for those who live in remote communities the art centre system is the most direct and transparent ethical pathway for the production and first sale of their art. Art centres operate to formal governance standards, are accountable to their artist members, and document provenance at the moment a work is created. Major peak bodies represent them at a regional level, including Desart in Central Australia, the Association of Northern and Kimberley Artists (ANKA) in the Top End, Ku Arts in South Australia, and the Indigenous Art Centre Alliance (IACA) across Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait.
Art centres represent most remote artists, but not the whole of Aboriginal artistic practice; many artists work independently by choice, in urban and regional contexts that the art centre system was not designed to serve.
Why ethics matters: a history
The entire corpus of Aboriginal culture can be likened to a magnificent, ancient tree. Its many branches represent hundreds of individual language groups that have flourished for 60,000 years as each generation carried its knowledge through to the next. Its roots, buried deep, are the ancient songlines that spread across the continent. Upon the coming of Europeans, the fencing of country, the loss of culture, the destruction of nomadic life and the restriction of ceremonial practice, this great tree has slowly withered. In a sustained act of cultural transmission, it has spread its seed in the form of tens of thousands of individual artworks to the far corners of the globe. This ancient tree of knowledge is what underpins all Aboriginal art and culture.
The case for ethical buying is grounded in a long history of perception, debate, and at times misunderstanding about how Aboriginal art and material culture should be traded.
The structural problem
For more than 200 years, items of Aboriginal material culture have moved through trade. The craftspeople and artists who made them understood that this exchange was a pathway to both preservation and respect. Long before any government patronage existed, artefacts and art passed through the hands of pastoralists, anthropologists, missionaries and others, exchanged for trade goods, rations and utilitarian items. At the onset of the contemporary painting movement, Aboriginal people were semi-institutionalised and legally prevented from earning and saving money. Artists entered commercial and personal relationships with contractors, teachers, shop owners, and landowners as they sought to exchange artworks for currency. As they gained greater freedom and independence over time their desire to engage in enterprise on their own terms has grown accordingly.
Many of the communities that Aboriginal people live in are not, in and of themselves, entirely virtuous places in which to live. They may be on, or proximate to, traditional lands, but many are the vestigial dysfunctional remnants of former mission stations and service centres.
The economic position of many Aboriginal artists has historically been one of asymmetry. Senior artists with international reputations have often lived in remote communities with limited access to banking, English-language contracts, art-world infrastructure, or independent legal advice. The number of people in these communities who earn substantial income from art production is tiny when compared to the total number of family and clan members on low incomes or dependent on government welfare. The artists' cultural authority over their own work may be total, but their commercial leverage in negotiating its sale, and retaining the income they derive from art production, has not always been.
The overwhelming majority of people who developed personal and commercial relationships with artists over this period have acted in good faith. A small number have not. The documented cases of exploitation that the industry has spent thirty years confronting tend to share a common structure: an isolated artist, a transient dealer, a transaction that bypasses the art centre or community, remuneration in cash or kind that bears no relation to market value, and a non-existent paper trail, or one designed to obscure rather than document.
A note on the assumption of vulnerability
A widespread assumption in public commentary on Aboriginal art is that Aboriginal artists are unsophisticated and uniformly vulnerable to exploitation. The assumption that they are like children is itself a form of racism and disrespect. As the art market has grown, artists have been offered greater opportunities to choose who they work with and how their art is marketed, and they exercise that choice. An artist who selects an independent dealer over a community art centre has made a commercial decision on their own terms. Treating that choice as evidence of vulnerability strips artists of the agency the industry exists to protect.
Carpetbagging
The term "carpetbagger" was coined during the American Civil War to describe a person who is here today and gone tomorrow. In the context of Aboriginal art it has been used to describe dealers who travel to remote communities, often arriving unannounced, and purchase work directly from artists outside the art centre system. Dealers who are transient and unaccountable — whose certification and bona fides are therefore meaningless. The financial or in-kind compensation that artists receive is suspected of being a fraction of what the work will later sell for in metropolitan galleries. Artists are said to be paid with defective vehicles, alcohol, drugs, or basic supplies and pressured to produce work in unsafe conditions or in styles dictated by the dealer, coercive, though there is rarely any proof of this.
Certainly, there have been cases where this sort of abusive behaviour has been documented and exposed. However, when compared to the entire enterprise of art production across the breadth of the Aboriginal art market, they are rare.
Many so-called carpetbaggers have been relatively unsophisticated contractors and community workers who have befriended artists and their families — people they have a great deal in common with, who have helped them to purchase vehicles, white goods, and other items for their outstations, and who have no idea how the art market works or how it views artworks created under these terms.
The term carpetbagger has, at times, also been deployed loosely — used by participants in the market to denigrate competitors whose practice they disagree with, rather than to describe genuine exploitation. The line between ethical independent practice and carpetbagging is real and not difficult to identify in any specific transaction. Carpetbagging is defined by what is hidden and untraceable: the artist's actual payment, the conditions of the sale, the chain of custody. Ethical independent practice is defined by what is open to scrutiny.
Conflating the two — treating any work that did not pass through an art centre as suspect — does its own damage. It strips artists who have legitimately chosen independent representation, or who simply want to engage in enterprise on their own terms, run their own businesses and create economic opportunities for their family, of access to the institutional market. It treats artists as wards rather than agents of their own commercial lives. This guide returns to this in the section on Where to Buy.
Public investigations, prosecutions, and the policy framework
The Australian Government's response to perceived ethical issues in the Aboriginal art market has been gradual and substantial. The article 'Scams in the Desert' written by Nicholas Rothwell and published in The Australian in March 2006 led directly to the 2007 Senate inquiry, Indigenous Art – Securing the Future. It established a public record on which subsequent reforms were built. The Indigenous Art Code was launched in 2010. The Australian Consumer Law has been applied in cases of misleading conduct involving Aboriginal art. The Productivity Commission examined the sector in 2022. Each of these processes has shaped the market in lasting ways.
The empirical basis for some of the framework's broader claims about fake and inauthentic products continues to be the subject of industry debate. Estimates of the scale of inauthentic Indigenous-style merchandise have been challenged on the grounds that they rest on anecdotal rather than measured evidence. This issue lies overwhelmingly with tourist product sold in the gift and souvenir trade. It has nothing to do with fine art production. The visible products in tourist precincts and on general online marketplaces are real, and they are a problem. The size of the problem, which led to the failed introduction of a Label of Authenticity on tee-shirts, tea towels and gift products, and the appropriate policy response, remain contested.
Why this matters for a buyer today
The vast majority of works sold today come from art centres, galleries, and dealers operating in good faith. Most of the market, by volume and by value, functions as it should.
The history above explains why the safeguards exist, why the questions in the next section matter, and why buying from an unfamiliar seller without due diligence is not a neutral act. It also explains why a buyer who treats provenance as a matter of which channel a work passed through, rather than how the artist was treated, can do real harm without intending to. Every ethical purchase should strengthen the artist's agency foremost, then the art centres and businesses, both independent and commercial, that support them and have built the legitimate market.
Six questions every buyer should ask
With the foundation above, a buyer is ready to ask the seller a small set of specific questions. The questions matter, but the answers, and the way in which they are delivered, matter more. A seller operating legitimately will have clear, specific responses.
1. Where did this work come from?
Ask the seller to describe the chain of custody from the artist's studio to the gallery wall. A legitimate seller will name the art centre, the dealer, or the previous owner. A work from an art centre will be documented as such. A work from the secondary market will have a documented sale history.
Listen for: specifics. The name of an art centre. An auction catalogue reference. The seller's professional affiliations — AAAA membership, art centre relationships, Indigenous Art Code signatory status — where relevant. Vagueness, evasiveness, or a story that depends on the seller's personal credibility without supporting paperwork is a signal to slow down.
2. What did the artist receive for this work?
A seller operating ethically can speak to how the artists they represent are paid, what proportion of the sale price flows back to the artist or the art centre, and whether the artist or their family still benefits from sales of their work.
Listen for: confidence in the answer. Sellers buying from art centres can explain the model — typically the centre takes a percentage to cover materials, studio costs, governance, and community programs, and the rest goes to the artist. Sellers working with independent artists can explain their arrangement. Sellers who deflect, who claim the question is impolite, or who say "the artist was happy" without specifics are telling you something.
3. Is the artwork accompanied by a certificate of authenticity, and who issued it?
Certificates of authenticity in this market are not standardised. A meaningful certificate is issued by the art centre that produced the work, or by a recognised artists' agent or wholesaler, and contains specific information: the artist's name and language group, the title and dimensions of the work, the year of creation, the materials used, and — typically though not always — an image of the work.
Listen for: the issuer's name and ability to verify. An art centre certificate can be confirmed by contacting the centre directly. An Indigenous Art Code certificate can be cross-referenced against the Code's register. An auction house certificate can be confirmed by looking up the record of sale. A certificate from any other issuer carries the weight of that issuer.
4. What does the price reflect?
Aboriginal art prices vary across an enormous range, from a few hundred dollars for emerging artists' smaller works to several million for major pieces at auction. A fair price reflects the artist's reputation and exhibition history, the significance of the work in the artist's body of work, the medium and condition, and current market conditions. In this respect the Aboriginal art market is no different from the non-Indigenous art market. An artist's importance — and therefore the value of their work — is determined by their exhibition record, the quality of the galleries that have shown their work, their representation in significant collections, and their visibility in art writing and criticism.
Listen for: comparable sales. A serious seller can point to other works by the same artist that have sold at similar levels or explain why this work commands a premium or discount. Prices that vary substantially from public auction records for the same artist warrant scrutiny.
5. Can the seller contact the art centre or another verification source on their behalf?
A seller operating ethically will always be happy to oblige. They will have the contact details of the art centre, the previous owner, or the relevant peak body, and assist if independent verification is required. A seller who declines, or who claims the contact is unreachable for reasons that don't add up, is asking the buyer to trust the seller's word over verifiable fact.
Listen for: an offer rather than a barrier. "Of course, I will be happy to contact the art centre, or the dealer for whom the artist created the work, on your behalf."
6. What happens after the sale?
A serious seller's relationship with a buyer does not end at purchase. They can speak to how the work should be cared for, what to do about insurance, what the resale market for the artist looks like, and the implications of any future donation, valuation, or estate planning.
Listen for: detail and patience. The seller who walks a buyer through provenance documentation, care advice, and long-term considerations is signalling something about how seriously they take their role.
When the answers don't add up
A buyer who asks these questions and receives clear, specific, verifiable answers can buy with confidence. A buyer who receives evasion, generalities, irritation, or excuses has been told what they need to know. The right response is not to negotiate harder. It is to walk away and find a seller who can answer.
Certificates of authenticity, explained
The certificate of authenticity is one of the most misunderstood documents in the Aboriginal art market. There is no single standard, no central registry, and no legal requirement that one exists at all.
A useful certificate does three things. It identifies the work unambiguously. It documents the work's origin in a way that can be independently verified. And it provides the buyer with a path back to that verification if questions arise later. Most of what is sold as a certificate of authenticity does the first. Far fewer do the second. Almost none do the third.
What a credible certificate contains
A certificate worth keeping with the artwork should include:
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The artist's name, language group, and community
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The title of the work, in language and English where applicable
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The year of creation
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Dimensions and medium (for example, synthetic polymer paint on linen)
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A photograph of the artist, the work, or both, where available
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The name and contact details of the issuing organisation
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A unique reference or catalogue number that the issuer can match to their own records
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The signature of the artist or the authorised signatory of the art centre
A certificate missing the first six items is not a serious document. A certificate that does not allow the buyer to trace the work back to a verifiable source is, in practical terms, a piece of paper.
Note: Certificates issued by Papunya Tula Artists are an exception to this rule, as they have never included photographs of the work or the artists.
Who issues credible certificates
Three sources carry meaningful weight.
The art centre or commissioning agent. A certificate issued by the art centre that produced the work, or the artist's commissioning agent, is the strongest form of provenance available. Art centres document every work from the moment it is created, retain the records permanently, and can verify a certificate's authenticity directly. Most commissioning agents can do the same.
The Indigenous Art Code Certificate. Code signatories may issue certificates under the Code's framework, carrying the Code's logo and reference number. A register of these certificates allows buyers to confirm authenticity. Code certificates do not guarantee that the underlying work is by the named artist — that is the dealer's representation — but they do guarantee that the dealer issuing the certificate has agreed to operate to the Code's standards.
The reputable secondary market. Established auction houses and dealers handling resale work issue their own provenance documentation. The minimum acceptable standard is full prior ownership history, the original art centre or gallery of issue where known, and a clear undertaking from the auction house or dealer regarding authenticity.
What a certificate is not
A certificate is not a valuation. The price paid for a work, and the work's market value at any given moment, are separate matters from the question a certificate answers.
A certificate is not a guarantee of ethical sourcing. A work can be authentic, created by a named Aboriginal artist, and still have been acquired through an unethical transaction.
A certificate that simply states the name of the original art centre where the work was created is not a substitute for an art centre certificate. Any document issued downstream is a secondary representation.
A certificate issued by an entity the buyer cannot identify, contact, or verify against an independent register, carries no more weight than the paper it is printed on. The credibility of the certificate is inseparable from the credibility of the issuer.
Where to buy
Most buyers cannot travel to a remote art centre, and most have no working knowledge of which galleries, dealers, or platforms have genuine relationships with the artists they represent. Every channel in the Aboriginal art market contains ethical operators and less ethical ones. The buyer's task is not to find the single "correct" channel — there is no such thing — but to verify the integrity of the specific transaction in front of them.
Art centres are the most direct pathway and, for many buyers, the right starting point. They are not the only legitimate one. Independent artists, long-established dealer relationships, auction, and online sales all form part of a functioning market.
Art centres
Buying from an Aboriginal-owned and operated art centre is the most direct ethical purchase available. The artist is paid through a transparent, governed system. The provenance is documented at the source. The money strengthens the centre's capacity to support more artists.
Art centres operate online, exhibit at art fairs, send works to partner galleries, and welcome visitors who travel to community. A buyer interested in a particular region — the Western Desert, the Tiwi Islands, the Kimberley, Arnhem Land, the APY Lands — can identify the art centres of that region through regional peak bodies (Desart, ANKA, Ku Arts, AACHWA, IACA, UMI Arts).
What to look for: A genuine art centre is artist-governed, has a public board, publishes information about its artists, and sells works through transparent channels.
What to be cautious of: Operators using "art centre" language without artist governance or peak body affiliation.
Independent artists and long-established dealer relationships
Not every Aboriginal artist works through an art centre. Some live in urban or regional Australia. Some have chosen, for personal or professional reasons, to operate independently. Some maintain decades-long relationships with individual dealers who represent them with the same care, transparency, and continuity a strong art centre would.
These pathways are legitimate. An artist's right to determine how their work reaches the market — including the choice not to work through a community-based organisation — is part of the artistic agency the industry exists to protect. A buyer who refuses to engage with independent practice on principle is not holding the higher ethical ground. They are excluding a substantial part of the legitimate Aboriginal art market.
The history of independent representation in the Aboriginal art market includes many longstanding professional relationships that have served artists and the broader market well. Gallery Gondwana in Alice Springs represented Linda Syddick, Walala Tjapaltjarri, Mitjili Napanangka, Dorothy Napangardi, and several other senior artists for many years through exclusive arrangements that connected them to national exhibitions and institutional collections. Fireworks Gallery in Brisbane has worked with Michael Nelson Tjakamarra over decades, supporting his collaboration with Imants Tillers and his entry into major art awards. Other senior artists have been represented through similarly substantive relationships with galleries including Japingka Gallery in Fremantle, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art and Vivien Anderson Gallery in Melbourne, David Cossey's Gallerie Australis in Adelaide (now no longer in operation), Karen Brown Gallery in Darwin, Our Land Gallery in Kununurra, This is Aboriginal Art in Alice Springs, Art Mob in Hobart, and Coo-ee Aboriginal Art (now Art Leven), founded by Adrian Newstead, in Sydney. These represent the legitimate end of independent practice: long-term, professional, transparent, and respectful of the artist's choice in representation.
The honest question is not whether a work has passed through an art centre, but whether the artist had agency in the transaction, was paid properly, and is represented in a manner they themselves endorse.
What to look for: A dealer who can describe their relationship with the artist in detail, name the duration of that relationship, speak to how the artist is paid, and put the buyer in contact with the artist or the artist's representatives where appropriate.
What to be cautious of: The red flags are not independence itself, but the markers of carpetbagging: transient sellers, undocumented chains of custody, prices that bear no relation to the artist's market, and any pattern in which the artist's voice in their own representation is absent.
Commercial galleries
A specialist gallery is, for most buyers in capital cities, the most practical point of access. The strongest galleries combine relationships with art centres and individual independent artists, a current exhibition program, and secondary market expertise.
The differences between galleries in this market are substantial. The presence of meaningful programming — exhibitions, catalogues, artist visits, contributions to the institutional sector — distinguishes a gallery from a retailer.
What to look for: Aboriginal Art Association of Australia or Indigenous Art Code signatory status where applicable. An exhibition program, not just a stock list. Named relationships with art centres and individual artists, confirmable independently. A willingness to discuss artist payment, provenance, and long-term care.
What to be cautious of: Galleries that hold large volumes of work by many artists without clear sourcing, that emphasise low prices or "investment" language, or that resist questions about acquisition.
Auction houses
The secondary market is concentrated in the major Australian auction houses. Auction offers access to historically significant works that would otherwise be unavailable, with the structural advantage that the catalogue is a public document and prices realised are part of the public record.
Auction provenance is concerned principally with prior ownership history. It is not, and is not designed to be, a moral audit of the work's first sale. For older works in particular, the buyer's reliance is on the auction house's broader judgement and reputation rather than on any document.
What to look for: Specialist Aboriginal art departments with named staff. Detailed catalogue entries with provenance, exhibition history, and prior auction records where applicable. Pre-sale condition reports. Established complaints and rescission frameworks.
What to be cautious of: Lots with thin provenance, particularly works attributed to senior artists with no documented chain of custody. Online-only auction operations without specialist expertise. Buyer's premiums not transparent before bidding.
Specialist Art Consultants
During the last 2 decades, an increasing number of secondary market sales have been achieved through art consultants with specialist knowledge in Indigenous art. Many are former employees of major art auction houses who, after years of experience handling items of indigenous material culture, have opened their own galleries or consultancies. Many are members of the Art Consulting Association of Australia (ACAA), the peak body representing art consultants. They can be identified through the members section of the ACAA web site.
Online platforms
Online sales now account for a significant share of the market. The category includes art centres selling directly, galleries operating e-commerce, established platforms aggregating multiple sellers, and individual sellers on general marketplaces.
Buying online is not, in and of itself, less ethical. The risk is that the visual cues a buyer might rely on in a gallery are flattened into product photography. Verification of the seller is the buyer's primary tool.
What to look for: Clear identification of the selling entity. Code signatory or AAAA status, art centre affiliation, or evidence of a substantial independent practice. Detailed provenance for each work. A returns and authenticity policy the buyer would accept if something went wrong.
What to be cautious of: General marketplaces where the seller is an unverified individual. "Aboriginal-style" or "Indigenous-inspired" listings. Aggregator sites that obscure the relationship between platform and underlying seller.
Fakes and "Aboriginal-style" products
A significant volume of merchandise sold as Aboriginal art, particularly in tourist precincts and on general online marketplaces, is not made by Aboriginal artists. It is manufactured offshore or designed by non-Indigenous artists in an Aboriginal idiom. AAAA advocates for stronger consumer protections in this area and works with member businesses to keep inauthen