Julianna Yau’s blog

(continued from VAS Day 2 Summary)

More specifically, some of the main/reoccurring issues identified were:
-visual arts literacy (or visualcy, a termed being used by NAVA), especially compared to visual arts exposure
-educational standards and priorities for visual arts
-education not only in institutions, but also through artist-to-artist mentorships
-education at the K-12 level, both as integrated programs and specialized schools for the arts
-reaching a wider audience and allowing the general public to feel more comfortable in galleries and with art
-how can the arts community shift their thinking and practices to satisfy the public’s appetite for art
-the need for the arts sector to be recognized as having real financial weight
-how to build a stronger bond between the art being collected and the art being exhibited
-the need to document and publish catalogues and other materials on collections and exhibitions
-space issues when it comes to collecting and exhibiting
-financial constraints for collecting new works (Allan McKay of the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery said that about 90% of newly acquired works, overall, are donations)
-how to make private collections and permanent collections more accessible (McKay here offered a more astounding estimate that 95% of a gallery’s collection is usually warehoused)
-engaging artists in the acquisition and exhibition process

There was also some discussion about the possibility of using new digital media as a possible solution for some of the issues of accessibility, education and preservation of works. Although these opportunities are very exciting, there is much yet to be discussed around the administration of these issues, and how much we really are reaching out. Alternative venues such as Facebook, Second Life or an independent website are great. But they are still inaccessible to the Canadians living in rural areas without an internet service to support the amount of information to be transmitted (if they have any access to internet services at all), and without careful planning we would soon end up having to rethink the issues again, or to need to convert everything to another format.

I also wonder, as did Jeffrey Matt, what other cultural industries face as issues of literacy and accessibility, and what they’re doing to address those challenges. Both composers of classical music and authors & writers certainly must face these issues to some degree–what are they doing about it?

I’m very curious to see what comes out of tomorrow’s discussions and closing remarks, and what will happen with all of this discourse after the conclusion of the Summit.

Related posts

• Visual Arts Summit - Day 2 - Summary (0)
• Visual Arts Summit – Day 1 (0)
• Visual Arts Summit - Day 3 - Morning (1)
• Shawna Dempsey’s remarks – Visual Arts Summit 2007 (1)
• Jessica Litman - Rethinking Copyright (0)