Today was very intensive, very condensed. As I type this, many of my peers are attending an informal tour of the galleries in Ottawa…and although I don’t normally have the chance to visit these galleries, I am in dear need of some downtime.
Throughout today’s panel discussions and smaller discussion groups, it was very apparent that it is problematic for the Summit to be the first in over 40 years. If the Summit had a different agenda, it would have been extremely useful for simply gathering a list of all many the things which need to be addressed in the arts community and collecting names of people who were willing to tackle the individual issues in smaller, more focused groups. As it is, we have been charged with the task of identifying key issues, propose policy changes to address the issues and make recommendations for creating support for resolving the issues. The task is hugely daunting, considering that this meeting of the minds does not happen more regularly.
There is certainly no lack of enthusiasm, interest or passion in what is happening right now. The resonating concern I’ve heard from my fellow delegates is on the lack of strong focus or clear direction. Although this lack of focus and direction is very unfortunate, I think it is a natural result of the fragmentation of the community which has occurred and which has been mirrored by the fragmentation of the network of support for arts and culture within the government. I’m really seeing a need for us to look at what other artist communities have done (and here I’m thinking primarily of NAVA) and bring into our community methods and perspectives which are useful and relevant to us.
I can hardly believe that everything we discussed today did in fact happen within a single day. This morning, we discussed education, access, interpretation and audiences. Each one of these issues could be a summit discussion unto themselves—and this was merely the morning! In the afternoon, we discussed the myriad of issues related to collecting and exhibiting art (and, more specifically, Canadian art).
My personal summary of the issues boil down to the matters of intellectual, physical and financial accessibility of art. Although I identified these constraints when we were discussing education and audiences, I think it applies equally from the perspective of galleries, curators and researchers (although some repositioning of the intellectual accessibility would have to be made to apply it from a research vantage, rather than one of direct interpretation of the work).
(continued in VAS Day 2 Further Thoughts)
