Julianna Yau’s blog

The closing remarks by the panelists in the afternoon were wonderfully powerful and reaffirming.

Shawna Dempsey has become one of my new heroines. Her speech was not merely insightful and eloquent, but immensely powerful and provided artists with the much-needed voice for the Summit. She reminded us that one of the stark things missing from the Summit was any direct discussion of the position and concerns of the individual artist. She remarked on the fact that we were all struck by the low artist income figures from Kelly’s presentation but that it was never mentioned again—that we seemed to almost be in denial of the fact that artist wages are so low. She also noted that there was no discussion on the conditions under which artists produce and live, and asked why so many creators of culture live below the poverty line. She brought our attention to the fact that artists subsidize the creation of their own work, and that society perpetuates the concept that current living conditions of artists are acceptable. And she reminded us that there will be no true change if the needs of individual artist are not considered.

Gerald Beaulieu, the President of CARFAC National, recapped some of the themes of the Summit and reminded us to think forwards from the Summit. He repeated the quote that “there is nothing creatively rewarding about not being paid”—a sad reality for some artists. He reminded us of the importance to maintain the momentum of the Summit and to build relationships. He also made specific reference to things we can do after leaving the Summit, such as work on realizing the Exhibition Right Fund and urging the Canada Council to have their artists’ grants refocussed on the research and creation of works rather than on the career stage of the artist because the Canada Council is not in the business of career development.

Hank Bull presented his closing remarks in the form of a wish list, which he dubbed “Hank’s List”:
1. Cultural diversity
2. Internationalism—both taking art and ideas outside of Canada and bringing it into Canada
3. Having the National Portrait Gallery in Ottawa (ed note: the nation’s capital, after all)
4. Strong national Museums Policy
5. Strong Support for Aboriginal Arts
6. Reaffirmation of peer juries
7. The National Gallery to take a leadership role
8. Solidarity from the Summit
9. Another Summit in 2 years
10. Universities to accept arts credits at the same level of other high school credits (ed note: I’m paraphrasing because he appended this to the list during the question period)

Tony Luppino reinforced that there needs to be real action coming from the Summit. He urged us to remember the importance of putting numbers to the things we want—to not simply ask for “increases”, but to ask for the actual amount of increase that we need to achieve our goals. He hoped (and I, too, hope) that from this Summit will come the formation of committees and action groups. He indicated that we need a real strategy for what to do with the National Portrait Gallery, rather than pitting cities against each other. He said that collection agencies should not call themselves that if they do not have a collection budget, and reinforced the need for more work to be done on the issue of education. He also asked us whether it would be beneficial to take up the issue of artists’ rights as human rights issues.

After these closing remarks by the panelists, many of the delegates also made pointed out items which still need to be addressed (my apologies to my fellow delegates: I was not able to capture names):
-publications not merely for broad audiences, but for specialized audiences
-support for the reinstatement of the art transport service
-raw studio space disappearing
-the need for an occupational health & safety report of the mental and physical health of artist work space
-the problem of artist advocates’ salaries being as low as the artist salaries
-the need to form a group to represent the sector, with an action plan
-the need for a government inquiry into the concerns raised at the Summit