Ethical and safe art practice (SACE Stage 2 Visual Arts)
“Practise safely and ethically, using original sources and respecting authorship, materials, and cultural protocols.”
Working ethically means using your own sources, crediting influences, respecting copyright and cultural protocols, and being honest about what is yours. Working safely means handling materials, tools and processes responsibly. Both are conditions of doing well: authenticity issues and unsafe practice can undermine an otherwise strong body of work.
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What this dot point is asking
Ethical and safe practice runs underneath everything in the Practical and across the whole subject. It is not a separate task but a standard your work has to meet. This dot point asks you to make authentic work from your own sources and to manage materials and processes responsibly throughout.
Authenticity and original sources
The single most important ethical principle is that the work must be genuinely yours. That means working from your own photographs, your own observations and your own experiments, rather than copying existing images.
- Own sources: use your own photographs and direct observation as primary material.
- No copying: do not reproduce another artist's imagery, composition or a found photo.
- Credit influence: acknowledge the practitioners and sources that informed you.
- Strategy not surface: borrow methods and ideas, not appearances.
Using someone else's photograph as the basis for a painting, or imitating an artist's composition, raises authenticity concerns and can put a result at risk. The safe and honest path is to generate your own source material from the start, which also makes your work more original.
Copyright and acknowledgement
Respecting authorship means understanding that images, photographs and artworks belong to their makers. When you reproduce a practitioner's work in your Folio for analysis, you acknowledge it as theirs. You do not pass off others' images as your own source material, and you do not build a final work on an uncredited found image. Keeping clear records of what is your own and what is referenced protects you.
This is partly a moderation and integrity issue: assessors and moderators need to trust that the development they see is genuinely yours.
Cultural respect and protocols
Some subject matter carries cultural responsibilities. Working with cultural material that is not your own, particularly First Nations stories, symbols or designs, requires care and respect for protocols about what may be used, shared or depicted, and by whom. Ethical practice means researching this, seeking permission where appropriate, and not appropriating imagery you have no right to use.
A student admires the bold imagery of a First Nations artist and wants to use similar dot patterns. Recognising that these carry specific cultural meaning and protocols, they instead study the artist's strategy (using surface mark to map connection to place) and apply it to their own context, mapping their own suburb through original marks drawn from their own photographs. They credit the influence in the Folio. The result is informed and respectful rather than appropriative, and it is authentically their own work.
Safe studio practice
Safe practice protects you and others. Many art materials and processes carry real hazards: solvents, spray fixatives and aerosols, kiln firing, sharp carving and cutting tools, power tools, and dust from sanding or plaster. Working safely means ventilating when using solvents and sprays, following correct procedures for tools and equipment, using protective equipment, and following your teacher's and school's safety instructions for every process.
Choosing a medium also means being honest about whether you can use it safely with the supervision and facilities available. Safe practice is part of professional, resolved making.
Basing a final work on a found photograph or another artist's image and hoping it will not be noticed, or rushing a hazardous process without proper precautions. Both undermine the work: the first risks authenticity penalties, the second risks injury and unfinished pieces. Generate your own sources from the start and follow safe procedures for every material and tool you use.
Make work that is genuinely yours from your own sources, credit your influences, respect copyright and cultural protocols, and handle every material and process safely. Authentic and safe practice is not an add-on; it is a condition your Practical has to meet for the work to stand and to be trusted as your own.
Assessment-style questions
Questions on this dot point, each with a worked answer, written by ExamExplained. Visual Arts has no written exam, so use them to check your understanding before your assessment tasks.
Practice10 marksExplain what authentic and ethical art practice requires in the Stage 2 Practical, and how an artist can be informed by a practitioner or cultural source without appropriating it.Show worked answer →
Establish that the work must be genuinely yours: working from your own photographs and observations, not copying existing images, crediting influences, and respecting copyright and cultural protocols. Using someone else's photograph as the basis for a painting, or imitating an artist's composition, raises authenticity concerns and can put a result at risk.
For respectful use, distinguish strategy from surface. Use the worked example: a student admires a First Nations artist's dot patterns but, recognising they carry specific cultural meaning and protocols, instead borrows the strategy (using surface mark to map connection to place) and applies it to their own suburb through original marks from their own photographs, crediting the influence. The result is informed and respectful rather than appropriative.
Top answers show ethics as a condition the work must meet, not an add-on, and connect authenticity to the trust assessors and moderators place in the development. Building a final work on an uncredited found image caps the marks.
Practice6 marksExplain why safe studio practice is part of resolved, professional making, and give examples of managing common hazards.Show worked answer →
Argue that safe practice protects you and others and is part of professional, resolved making, because injury and rushed, hazardous processes lead to unfinished or unsafe work. Name real hazards: solvents, spray fixatives and aerosols, kiln firing, sharp carving and cutting tools, power tools, and dust from sanding or plaster.
Give management examples: ventilating when using solvents and sprays, following correct procedures and using protective equipment, and choosing a medium only if you can use it safely with the supervision and facilities available. Marks reward linking safe practice to the integrity and completion of the work. Listing hazards with no management or link to resolved making scores lower.
Practise this
Sources & how we know this
- Stage 2 Visual Arts subject outline (2025 onwards) — SACE Board
- Stage 2 Visual Arts: external assessment — SACE Board