Many thanks to Anthea Black and Fast Forward for this article. I would like to see the discussion pushed even further by analyzing what is happening to artists in Calgary within the context of what is happening in our community as a whole. Specifically, I would like to see the connections made between the free market ideology of our government, the cuts in public funds for health, education, social services and the arts, and the concomitant idea that the corporate sector should and would take on the responsibility of addressing needs in these areas, and the consequences. This analysis would go some way to explaining why community-based visual and media artists and cultural workers weren’t invited to speak and why artists were dismissed by Cynthia Moore (Kahanoff Foundation) as not “getting out in the broader community.”
As someone who has just returned from the Art Building Community symposium in Winnipeg, and having worked with numerous artists in this city who do engage with community, I know the speaker’s statement to be false. Of course, that raises the interesting question of why it was made, whose interests does it serve, and who does she include in community. Hopefully this analysis would also begin to provide us with the tools we need to collectively address our situation.
Rosemary Brown,
Calgary artist
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