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Current Climate: An Analysis of the Arts

Federal Budget Analysis 2020

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Graphic Recording prepared by Devon Kerslake, ThinkLink Graphics

Mass Culture, through funding from the Canadian Conference of the Arts, is dedicated to conducting a federal budget analysis on an annual basis. 

The roundtable for Mass Culture’s inaugural Federal Budget Analysis was coordinated by Akoulina Connell, who also facilitated the discussion, and Bridget MacIntosh. Participants in the discussion were Mark Campbell, MaryElizabeth Luka, Loc Dao, Lindsay Fisher, Laurence D. Dubuc, and Niigaanwewidam Sinclair. You can find out more about the speakers and Akoulina below. Find out more about the graphic recording (above) by Devon Kerslake, ThinkLink Graphics, here.

Due to delays resulting from, and issues surrounding, COVID-19, the panel discourse shifted to examine the current climate in the arts sector. The accompanying paper, written by Akoulina Connell, depicts this moment in time, reflects on recent funding commitments by the Canadian government and other funding bodies, and specifies opportunities for change.

The below data visualizations, which depict funding received by the arts sector between 2016 and 2021, have been prepared by Janita Grift.

Funding commitments for the arts sector between 2016 and 2021

The below data visualizations, which depicts  funding commitments for the arts sector between 2016 and 2021, have been prepared by Janita Grift.

Federal Budget Analysis

'Current Climate: An Analysis of the Arts' Roundtable

With Mark Campbell, Loc Dao, Laurence D. Dubuc, Lindsay Fisher, Mary Elizabeth "M.E." Luka, Niigaanwewidam Sinclair and Akoulina Connell
Watch video now

Towards an Intersectional Approach: Rethinking Arts Ecosystem

By Akoulina Connell

An analytical paper in conjunction with Mass Culture Digital Gathering: In Context: Federal Cultural Investment 2020-2021

This paper depicts the arts and cultural sector at this moment in time, reflects on recent funding commitments, and specifies opportunities for change. 

Read now

Graphic Recording

By Devon Kerslake, ThinkLink Graphics

Graphic Recording Analysis

With Devon Kerslake and Bridget MacIntosh
Watch video now

Alternative Federal Budget

This article was originally published in July 2020 as Mass Culture’s contribution to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives‘ Alternative Federal Budget Recovery Plan.

You can find the entire recovery plan on the Centre for Policy Alternatives’ website here, or the arts and culture-specific piece on Mass Culture’s blog.

Arts Chapter

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Full Report

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Roundtable speakers

Mark Campbell
Mark V. Campbell, DJ & Curator, is a faculty member in the Arts, Culture & Media department at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He is a former Board Member at the Ontario Arts Council and founder at Northside Hip Hop Archive. Mark is also a founding member of Canada’s Black Curators Forum.
Akoulina Connell
Akoulina is an experienced leader and arts advocate who catalyzes systems transformation through co-creation and digital strategies to increase agility, transparency, inclusion, and public engagement. She has worked in both the public and private sectors; has led two provincial funding agencies; was managing editor of a literary press; worked in the IT sector; and has held communications roles in several Federal Departments. http://akoulinaconnell.com/
Loc Dao
Loc Dao is the co-founder of the groundbreaking NFB Digital and CBC Radio 3 studios and their industry shifting bodies of work. He has won over 100 awards including Producer of the year, FWA site of the year, a Cannes Cyber Lion and 10 Webby Awards. He was recently the Chief Digital Officer for the National Film Board of Canada. Loc has advised the Government of Canada; Canada Media Fund; Sundance, Tribeca, IDFA, and VIFF Film Festivals.
Laurence D. Dubuc
Laurence D. Dubuc is a Ph.D candidate and a lecturer at the School of Industrial Relations of the University of Montreal. Specialized in public policies, she has been studying artists as an occupational group and artistic labour markets for over 10 years. Her most recent work focuses on individual and institutional strategies dedicated at improving visual and performing artists’ working conditions in Quebec. She has worked on different reports funded by the Ontario Arts Council (The Status of Women in the Canadian Arts and Cultural Industries) and Quebec’s Ministry of Culture and Communications (forthcoming). Laurence is also involved in the arts community as the vice-president of the cultural organization Vue sur la Relève’s management board.
Lindsay Fisher
Lindsay Fisher is the Founder and Director of Creative Users Projects, a disability-led not-for-profit arts service organization, working towards making discoverable an inclusive and accessible arts sector in Canada. Lindsay is also the Artistic Producer for Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology and Access to Life, a SSHRC research project that creates collaborative partnerships between artists, arts organizations, activists, scholars, and educators with the goal of expanding understandings of vitality and advancing social justice. As an artist and a woman with a disability, her career has always been motivated by a desire to create more opportunities and spaces with different bodies in mind and to help cultivate accessible curatorial practices that impact artists, audiences and Canada’s arts ecology.
Mary Elizabeth "M.E." Luka
Dr. Mary Elizabeth (“M.E.”) Luka is Assistant Professor of Arts & Media Management at University of Toronto, where she examines modes and meanings of co-creative production, distribution and dissemination in the digital age for the arts, culture, media and civic sectors. Dr. Luka holds a Connaught New Researcher Fellowship examining creative networks and partnerships in Canada, the UK and Australia. Dr. Luka is a founding member of the Critical Digital Methods Institute at UTSC, and co-applicant on Archive/Counter-Archive: Activating Canada’s Moving Image Heritage, a six-year national partnership involving universities and cultural organizations in marginalized and underrepresented media archives. She partners with Mass Culture to generate cultural research resources in Canada and has previously been commissioned by Canadian Public Arts Funders and the Department of Canadian Heritage, among others.
Niigaanwewidam Sinclair
Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair is Anishinaabe (St. Peter’s/Little Peguis) and an Assistant Professor at the University of Manitoba. He is a regular commentator on Indigenous issues on CTV, CBC, and APTN, and his written work can be found in the pages of The Exile Edition of Native Canadian Fiction and Drama, newspapers like The Guardian, and online with CBC Books: Canada Writes. Niigaan is the co-editor of the award-winning Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water (Highwater Press, 2011) and Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories (Michigan State University Press, 2013), and is the Editorial Director of The Debwe Series with Portage and Main Press. Niigan obtained his BA in Education at the University of Winnipeg, before completing an MA in Native- and African-American literatures at the University of Oklahoma, and a PhD in First Nations and American Literatures from the University of British Columbia.

Alternative Federal Budget Co-Authors

Bridget MacIntosh
Bridget has held senior cultural policy and programming management positions with the cities of Toronto, Mississauga and Hamilton with portfolios spanning arts, events, public art and cultural planning. Notable accomplishments include the creation of the City of Hamilton’s Events Office where she led the design and delivery of numerous city-wide celebrations and extensive community engagement to develop a support system to facilitate 400+ annual creative placemaking, community and tourism events. As a passionate arts advocate, Bridget’s has contributed to numerous committees and boards with organizations such as the Canadian Arts Coalition; Project for Public Spaces Placemaking Leadership Council, Festivals and Events Ontario, Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts and foldA (Festival of Live Digital Arts).
Cate Proctor
M. Catherine (Cate) Proctor, MBA, is an author and leader of arts and cultural sector development, currently focused on consulting and research initiatives. As Founder and Principal of Proctor Shift Consulting, Cate interprets and promotes artistic value and the arts ecosystem, bridging the importance of creative artistic assets to holistic ‘community’ outcomes. She holds an Executive Master of Business Administration degree, a Certified in International Trade Professional (CITP) designation, and marketing and audio production diplomas. She is Ontario (East) Representative for Arts Ponds’ DigitalASO project, Co-Chair of Mass Culture's Research and Policy working group, Board member of Evolution Theatre, incoming Vice-President at Arts Consultants Canada, and supports arts research opportunities at the University of Ottawa. In 2017, Ottawa-Vanier Member of Parliament, Mona Fortier, presented Cate a Canada 150 Sesquicentennial Pin for her contribution to arts and culture development. 

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Mass Culture honours and acknowledges the territories upon which our offices reside, the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Métis, and the Anishinabek, including the Mississaugas of the New Credit Nation. We recognize and respect all recorded and unrecorded Nations who cared for this land of Tkaronto, meaning “Where the Trees Meet the Water.” We honour the Dish With One Spoon treaty and our responsibility to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. Mass Culture is grateful for the opportunity to nurture the world of the arts and connect cultures and communities across this land, which is the home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island. We hope to breathe life into our obligations to those communities and treaties. If you’re not sure of the history of the land on which you live and work, you can check out whose.land/en/ and native-land.ca/.
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