On January 29, 2026, Mass Culture organised a day-long Expo focused on data training, and the energy was remarkable. My name is Bita, and as a Humber Polytechnic student studying Arts Administration and Cultural Management, I’ve had the privilege of spending this semester with Mass Culture for my work-integrated learning experience. One of my primary tasks was to support the execution of a full-day virtual event and to write a blog post about the DNA Expo.
The insights I gained that day were both from the attendees and the speakers. I’ll focus my reflection on the questions put forward during the event that I found most intriguing. While some found immediate answers and others remained open-ended, these are the kinds of inquiries that stay with us, inviting us to revisit them in every new chapter of our lives and work. Perhaps the most important takeaway for me was this: asking the right questions is the first essential step toward better evaluation and planning.
Whose data is being prioritized and whose isn’t?
I am currently reading James C. Scott’s Seeing Like a State in my book club. One of the book’s central ideas is the simplifications and reductionist approach to map-making and demographic data collection required for state-building efforts in the modern era. Scott argues that these simplifications and the social engineering that followed often robbed communities of their dynamism.
A friend of mine, a software engineer, challenged this idea in our last meeting. She asked, “what is the point of critiquing these simplifications when we have no choice but to simplify? Isn’t that how we understand every aspect of life?”
When I heard this question asked at the DNA Expo, “Whose data is being prioritised and whose isn’t?” I thought of her. I thought about how ignoring “outliers”, the very data points that often bring about real, meaningful change, has become the standard way we approach knowledge. While we are bound to simplify to arrive at understanding, we must remain hyper-aware of the power dynamics involved.
Mass Culture is a great initiative that shows us how the need for a birds eye view of our sector, as the DNA platform exceptionally provides. Does not mean ignoring the constant need for the exploration of the narratives.
Scaling up often creates a slippery slope where the “norm” erases the unique. This DNA Expo made me reflect profoundly about scale. It reminded me to be intentional in my own data practices: What am I sacrificing for a larger sample size? Why do I truly need a larger data set? I am grateful to be part of a community committed to asking how we can collect data in more inclusive ways to tell better stories.
Futurity and Lived Realities
The second question that has stayed with me was posed during the session, Future Digest. This was a compelling workshop led by Betty Xie of Forward Avenue, that explored strategic foresight and future possibilities by envisioning the arts sector in 2050.
In this session, Betty invited us to first imagine a dystopian future where the arts have faded away. She asked everyone to either write about a day in the life of that imaginary future or act as a historian, analysing how our past led us to that state. Next, she asked us to perform the same exercise for a utopian future, one where arts and culture are thriving, and creativity is woven into the fabric of our daily lives.
During this discussion, a participant who had lost their home in a hurricane just months ago posed a profound question about futurity: How do we engage with the future when there are things in the present that will eventually become everyone’s future? Given the context they provided, the question was about our engagement with a “future” that is already another community’s present reality.
As an Iranian immigrant who has started to truly see Canada as my home, I have experienced this truth in my “flesh and bones.” Since embracing Canada and this community as my own, the borders on the map have become far more meaningless; I see myself as a human of this world. To me, globalisation signifies that we are all bound together in a shared civic society and a collective commitment to one another.
This question served as a poignant reminder that many communities are currently living through the very dystopias we only imagine in workshops. I have lived through some of these realities myself, and my family and friends continue to live through them today. It was also a reminder for me not to shy away from asking hard questions or from sharing what, in my lived experiences, has caused those harsh realities.
Betty’s workshop and the DNA Expo was a great learning opportunity on aligning and incorporating qualitative and quantitative data. More importantly, they were a reminder of the inherent power in the qualitative; that data, as much as we might try to categorize it, cannot be divorced from lived experience. Our stories aren’t just “context” for the numbers, they are the very heartbeat of the information we collect. I believe one of our community’s greatest treasures is the diversity of people who have already lived through the “futures” we are only now beginning to contemplate. We should cherish the opportunity to use their stories and journeys as a great source of qualitative data while never forgetting those who have paid for that wisdom with their lives.
This is the core of strategic foresight: it is not just about imagining 2050, but about using those visions to decide how we work today. By identifying the futures we desire, we gain the agency to take the first steps toward them right now.
My experience in Mass Culture and the DNA Expo was a unique opportunity to learn to navigate the sphere of data, to deeply understand that both qualitative and quantitative data coexist on the same plane and both are necessary for grounding our understanding of the world around us.
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Bita Baakhlagh