Visual Arts Summit - Day 2

Today was our second day at the Visual Arts Summit in Ottawa.

It was a fabulous day and incredibly informative, but the highlight is still our trip yesterday to the Portrait Gallery of Canada's archive at the Gatineau Preservation Centre (see yesterday's blog below today's blog).

The morning plenary session was about education and access.
Speakers brought up some of the challenges facing us in Canada, and we later broke into small groups to discuss that and ways to make things better in the future.

Some of the challenges, according to the speakers and people from the floor:
*Art programs are expensive, due in part to the need to have low student - faculty ratios.
*There is a need for more focus on community collaboration
*Art is being partially replaced by 'decor'
*More publicity is needed for the arts
*'Viseracy,' or visual literacy, has to be as important as text literacy

When we broke into the 15 separate groups, our group agreed upon some of the initiatives we would like put forward. All the groups' intiatives will be compiled at the end of the seminar and the intent is to use them to shape the future of art in Canada.

Our initiatives include:

*We would like to see free admission to galleries
*We need to find out what 'speaks' to people to get them coming through the doors of museums, galleries, etc.
*We need more help transitioning from post-secondary students to working artists
*We want to form an alliance to have an aggressive public voice that will ensure government seriously looks at culture as an important part of their future intiatives, and that they understand we have significant enough numbers to keep a government from getting a majority if they don't consider it important.
*We would like to see arts as part of the curriculum from elementary school and up, so that children learn about the arts all through school. They do not have to choose an art career, but they will be informed and not intimidated when they visit galleries, etc.

The afternoon session was about collecting and exhibiting Canadian art. The plenary session speakers talked about Canada having "an inferiority complex" and that there is an imbalance in museums regarding budgets for Canadian exhibitions. They said there are no "blockbuster" (big budget) exhibitions for Canadian art and that there was not enough publishing of comprehensive catalogues. With our limited resources for contemporary Canadian art, we have to "invent associations with collectors," said one of the panel members. We "deplore" starvation of the arts, said another, adding we have to equip the museums and galleries to take on the electronic age. Another issue according to one of the panel members is that "We don't have adequate resources to preserve works."

After the session, our discussion group put forward the following suggestions:
* Create a national acquisition strategy
* Have more dialogue, become known to each other, and have greater co-operative initiatives

The day was concluded with the Hnatyshyn Foundation Awards Reception.
Louise Dery, curator at the Galerie de l'UQAM in Montreal received $15,000 for the Foundation's first curator award, and the 2nd annual award for outstanding achievement by an artist in mid-career meant a $25,000 prize for Ken Lum of Vancouver. In presenting the awards, Mme Hnatyshsyn said, "Contemporary art is not a luxury but a necessity for a healthy society." She also added that, "It can open our eyes to see and our hearts to imagine."


Tomorrow's schedule includes plenary sessions and discussion on: the force of markets, and market issues.