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Arts Tasmania is the State Government's arts agency, the primary function of which is to assist in the development of a viable arts industry in Tasmania.

It promotes excellence and participation in, and access to, a wide range of arts and cultural activities for all Tasmanians.

Arts Tasmania works with the Tasmanian Arts Advisory Board (TAAB), members of which are appointed by the Minister for the Arts. Assistance to the arts is provided in accordance with the Arts Advisory Board Act 1975 (Tas.), which empowers the TAAB to provide advice to the Minister for the Arts on all policy and funding matters for the development of the arts in Tasmania.

The industry has grown and developed significantly over the past four years, working in partnership with all tiers of government and the private sector.

Recent achievements have included:

• The inaugural Tasmanian Living Artists' week took place in August 2003. This involved over 550 artists and 275 listings including gallery openings, talks and other events state wide.

• Over 20,000 people visited the Thylacine Editions exhibition at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

• The further development of arts@work from a pilot program to a central Statewide infrastructure providing employment and market development opportunities for artists.

• Respecting Cultures, an Aboriginal arts protocol guide was launched nationally, providing a specifically Tasmanian perspective on appropriate ways to work with Aboriginal artists and their communities.

• Arts Train, a comprehensive on-line arts training database has been developed which gives a one-stop listing of training of relevance to the arts and cultural sector.

• Young Designers month in 2004 incorporated the focus exhibition, forums with international and national design leaders, workshops and dialogues with internationally successful industry representatives.

• A major initiative commenced in 2003-04 was the Tasmania Performs regional touring program to develop audience, market and product development strategies.

• Reflections of Tasmania was a special bicentennial event in July 2004 bringing home famous Tasmanians who spent their formative years here and have gone on to earn international reputations in the arts. Among the returning artists were writer Peter Conrad, choreographer Graeme Murphy, author Christopher Koch, film and television producer Posie Graeme-Evans and theatre director Nigel Triffit.

• A review of the Ten Days on the Island major cultural festival was completed and released in mid 2004.