Artist Perspective: Madeleine Thornton-Smith takes us through her journey from artist to advocate for artists’ incomes and working conditions—as she continues to practise as an artist. She recounts her first experience of ‘sham contracting’ in the visual arts sector—where she was hired as an independent contractor but effectively treated as an employee, with little ability to negotiate pay and conditions. Engagement with the trade union movement led her to joining the Artists’ Union Working Group—a small group of artists and arts workers investigating the theme of artists’ labour—and to participation in the Union Summer internship with the Victorian Trades Hall Council and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. Since then, Thornton-Smith has been an important voice for artists’ working rights through her writing, creative practice and as a speaker at two separate government enquiries into working conditions in the visual arts sector.