Ottawa Workshops and Town Hall (http://cpamo.posterous.com/pages/cpamo-in-ottawa)

One of the key methods CPAMO has used in its work is to engage in partnership with arts organizations in local communities. In Ottawa, CPAMO has been working with: the Ottawa Art Gallery, CARFAC National, the Great Canadian Theatre Company, the Coalition of New Canadians for Arts and Culture, the Ottawa Chinese Heritage Association, the Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership, Gallery 101, Centre Pointe Theatre and Shenkman Hall for the Arts, One World Dialogue, MASC (Multicultural Arts in Schools and Communities), CAPACOA and individual artists in dance and visual arts.

These individuals and organizational representatives have worked together in workshops to help plan and coordinate the September 20, 2012 Town Hall and December 17, 2012 Data Smarts sessions. They have also contributed to promoting the MASC Mondays performances (April 17, 2012 and September 20, 2012) and One World Dialogue International Peace Art Show (September 21-22, 2012).

The planning workshops were held on April 16 (full day), June 12 and August 20 (half days). The first workshop offered presentations by the OAG, CNCAC and MASC followed by small group sessions. A MASC Monday was held in the evening, April 16. The artists who participated in this evening’s performance were: Sonia St. Michel, Phil Jenkins, Celtic Rathskallions and Kathy Armstrong.

The other two workshops were held in June and August to review the results of the previous session and to clarify logistics for the promotion of the Town Hall.

The Town Hall on - Aboriginal and Ethno-Racial Communities in Ottawa and Implications for the Arts was a full day session held at 219 Argyle Avenue, the offices of the Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership. As part of this event, a MASC performance event was held in the evening and the following day, Sept. 21, the One World Dialogue's "International Peace Day Art Exhibit" was held at Shenkman Arts Centre. 

The Ottawa community is changing and there are increasing signs of this in the growth of Aboriginal and ethno-racial communities. To address this, several arts organizations in Ottawa came together to discuss these changes and what they mean to promoting arts and culture in the Ottawa region.

This Town Hallprovided opportunities for Ottawa artists and arts organizations to discuss these changes in the Ottawa region and to share strategies for engaging these communities and building audiences for and from them. This first Town Hall focused on the characteristics of Aboriginal and ethno-racial communities and relationship to community engagement and audience development. The panelists for this event discussed issues related to Aboriginal communities and their engagement in the arts as well as on ethno-racial and immigrant communities, their interests in the arts and their social capital. This was followed by facilitated discussions on the importance and extent of community-based organizations in Aboriginal and ethno-racial communities and how to work with them.

In this session, participants received information related to the changing numbers and compositions of communities across Ontario related to:

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1) What has happened and will continue to happen in terms of the numerical growth and areas of settlement of these communities;

2) The implications/significance of these changes in terms of social, economic, political and cultural perspectives;

3) The key characteristics of these growing communities, particularly in terms of cultural interests/retention and how this might lead to programming, employment and marketing opportunities;

4) The social capital of these communities and some geographic mapping of them as well.

The presentations were in the morning followed by workshops in the afternoon which carriedthe morning discussion further in order to share information about what artists and arts organizations are doing to connect with these growing communities, what's working and where there is need for assistance. The results of these discussions will set the stage for future workshops aimed at developing strategies for Ottawa arts organizations to connect with Aboriginal and ethno-racial communities in the Ottawa Region.

The speakers for the Town Hallwere:

Jerry P. Longboatis Mohawk-Cayuga, Turtle Clan from Six Nations of the Grand River in Southern Ontario. Jerry has a Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Michigan and the Ontario College of Art and Design. He has extensive professional training and practice in Traditional and Contemporary forms of visual art, dance, theatre, and storytelling. Jerry creates from the oral traditions of his people - history, teachings, and stories. In 2002, after a 15 year artistic career, Jerry began work as a Program Officer at the Canada Council for the Arts primarily assisting Aboriginal Dancers and Dance organizations across Canada. In 2010, Jerry joined the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health as Cultural Coordinator to deepen his work with community.

Catherine (Kateryna) Shepertycki is a graduate of the University of Ottawa with degrees in music (majoring in piano and ethnomusicology) and communication (focus on human creativity).  Additional university study included work in Arts Administration (certificate) and Slavic Studies.  Catherine received professional dance training at various dance schools in Ottawa, at the Saskatchewan School for the Arts and as a full-time student at the Kyiv Institute of Culture, Ukraine. After working at the Ottawa School of Art as a program manager for several years, Catherine joined the City of Ottawa’s Culture Division in 1989 and has worked in the areas of public art, cultural funding and arts development. Catherine led the transition of the municipal cultural portfolio from Ottawa-Carleton’s 12 former municipalities into the new, amalgamated City of Ottawa (2001).  Since that time, she has successfully led the development of the Ottawa 20/20 Arts Plan (2003), the Arts Investment Strategy (2007), and the Renewed Action Plan for Arts, Heritage and Culture (2013-2018) – all in full partnership with the community. As Co-ordinator, Cultural Development and Initiatives at the City of Ottawa, Catherine is currently working on a range of municipal cultural initiatives with a diverse team of passionate people.

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Brian Ray is a social geographer who is interested in the diverse ways that urban people organize their everyday lives in multi-ethnic cities. For the most part, Brian’s work examines different aspects of immigrant integration in North American and European cities. His research projects have emphasized the following issues: the importance of cultural identity and gender in integration processes among new immigrants, housing affordability and homeownership trends among refugees and ethno-cultural groups, the social networks of immigrant women, the spatial segregation of immigrant and ethnic groups in large cities, geographies of employment and social mobility, and the social construction of ‘race’ and racist practices. Beyond the fields of immigration and cultural diversity, his research also examines the socio-cultural meaning of neighborhood spaces for marginalized groups and geographies of gender and sexuality.

The notes for the Town Hallare copied belowand the speakers’ presentations can be seen on CPAMO’s website ((http://cpamo.posterous.com/presentations-from-ottawa-town-hall-september).

Fifty-five (45) people attended this session. There were several issues emerging from the afternoon session that will be discussed at planning meetings in December 2012 and January 2013. These issues will form the basis for follow-up activity in 2013-14. In the evening, CPAMO and MASC held the second MASC Monday performance which featured the following artists: Galitcha, Fana Soro, Maria Hawkins and Colores.

As part of this Town Hall, CPAMO supported the International Peace Day Art Show which is the main annual event for One World Dialogue (OWD) to celebrate the United Nations International Day of Peace on September 21, 2012 from 7:00 – 10:00 pm at the Shenkman Arts Centre in Ottawa. The purpose of this show was to bring awareness and promote collaboration in the community around Peace Day by bringing different artists together from diverse backgrounds to dialogue on peace and integration in the Ottawa community. In this context, art creates a space for positive public engagement in a non-threatening setting.

Jaime Koebel, 2011 Basement Artists, 2011 H’Art of Ottawa, 2011

At this International Day of Peace Art Show some art was also presented by youth both from Canada and Tanzania and on Saturday September 22, 2012 there were children’s art activities at the Shenkman Centre to engage youth in the Ottawa community on themes of dialogue and peace.

The artists who participated in this event were: Jaime Koebel, Sandy Woods, H’Art of Ottawa, Basement Artists, K.C. Geoffrey Ng, Sandra Millar, Sau Lan Mo, Art Camp, Maria Gomez, ElBagir Osman, Suzanne Valois, Olaf Krassnitzky, Tanzanian Children’s Art (Karama House Orphanage and Good Hope Orphanage), Saudia Rafiquddin

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One World Dialogue (OWD) is a non-profit organization that applies the principles of integrative thinking, art and design to social issues. OWD’s mission is to examine how to create an effective dialogue that works towards greater integration and fostering a lasting peace. OWD works off building partnerships and promoting collaboration to showcase how the work around us can promote dialogue.

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TOWN HALL ON PLURALISM IN THE ARTS IN OTTAWAAFTERNOON SESSION NOTES

September 20th, 2012

CHALLENGES:

Artists get lost at the grassroots level

Artists have to go to art galleries, to promote and that is difficult. Artists are poor and do not have the resources to do so. The questions they ask themselves is how to get into the mainstream?

Aboriginals find a lot of red tape. Proposals are complicated and artists are not into those activities, do not know what to do.

Art has become a business and artists are not business people. A big concern is that there are great voices to be heard but also to compete for grants. You need business skills to be successful in the system, be able to manage the lexicon, forms. Artists live a solitary existence.

There is need to know where public funding money goes to, where and what for.

One role of bureaucrats is to facilitate the process and to gather information

Artists do not praise themselves. It is more about recognition from a group, peer recognition.

One challenge is that the money goes to projects and there is the requirement to justify relevance, so the artist has to take a lot of her/his time to do the proposal instead of working on her/his art, therefore core funding goes to the project language not to the art.

Artists have to produce and show a body of work

Politicians should look at artists as moneymakers because art can increase tourism. Art and artists are investments.

Support systems, access to resources are difficult for artists. Resources should be accessible; an artist should be able to get the help needed.

There are organizations like CARFAC that organizes workshops about proposal writing and budgeting but the challenge is that sometimes artists do not think they need those tools

Promotion of resources and grants is a challenge. Sometimes there are not applicants for some programs

It is complicated to reach out to some groups in the community, particularly aboriginal and ethno cultural communities.

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There are systemic issues that immigrant groups face like the paternalistic approach of some organizations and also that they want artist to volunteer, to perform for free

Creators live in poverty. The challenge is that to get grant money there is need to have a non-for-profit organization registered so a big sum of the money goes to the agencies to pay for staff not to the artists.

Artists need management skills.

Gallery moved to the West coast. People learning how to talk to aboriginal without putting down. After six years good reputation. Here in Ottawa new dialogues and new aboriginal friends.

How to overcome? With cookies and tea, arts and social services are not meeting in Ottawa. In Saskatchewan arts boards provide money and the groups kept meeting: curators, artists and community.

Tribe of aboriginal artists’ collective (without space) worked together on ‘Define Indian’ a project in collaboration with other organizations with ‘tribe’.

Ottawa is not connected yet, some galleries: 101, SAW

National Ottawa School of Arts in Oxleans, join and communication between galleries. Friday studios are empty, available for artists to rent or make affordable. Internal communications.

(2) NCC - ‘key’ challenge a programmer and presenter. Relying on local talents – no date to present and nationwide. Contemporary artists of vide backgrounds with excellence – how can we provide the opportunities? Where to stay and how to sustain it? How and what resources are here?

How to train people to develop presentations that are relevant?

Community arts , Nepean Arts, gallery – city have been expending: aboriginal, Chinese, Indian, Russian, Ukrainian. Dance – ethno centre for the community at grass roots organization.

Jennifer Cartwhight – art appraisal/writer. Indian affairs project, Northen ???

Urban/rural art and photography

How can she have voices represented – Inuit connections (Mellissa and from Gallery 101)

Saw LauMo – Chinese heritage, Uan Ghogh – workshop for children

Challenge: Outreach – Is any one getting a diverse audience?

CNCAC: not engaging enough people – for new Canadians its hard.

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Liaison person knows businesses/food and gathering people there.

Immigrants in suburbia creates more multiculturalism in classes for kids but not parents so much.

Put of community not coming to the shows- diverse shows-information.

Nepean - same programming and format of programming, not attracting an audience. People know about the place - not a lot of interest from public.

Outreach across the country: send info, build relationship with people and keep cards, links and database. People have messages from your community; to connect with people; invitation comes from organizations.

Urban Diversity Forum - urbandiversity.ca database of arts/cities across Canada and how they are changing.

Programming with the best of intentions, maintain openness and awareness, NCC, networking, corporate strategy.

Call for artists – CNCAC, open it up to artengine and 613

There it a lot going on –CNCAC website?

Street people art coop – one year, a quarter; aboriginal street workers, one afternoon per week. Action at the end raised $700. Finance was cut, aid they were left to new group – not supported.

Flying squad: opportunity for clients to ensure the life of the organizations; live arts communities don’t ask the big businesses for financial support in Ottawa.

Prairies: how successfully gather Canada Council for the Arts grants so they read, move to big businesses. Staff in Toronto would write grants for artists. Professional development: CARFAC workshops on grant writing. Importance of putting upfront the statements that you support immigrants. If you want to bring audiences- multifaceted, understanding your audience.

Nepean: community galleries, 150km around the city. Community building where to place the galleries? Near libraries and rinks.

Outreach cannot be critically assessed , the quality has to be assessed, connection to hird wave generation of immigrants.

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VALUABLE STRATEGIES USED:

CARFAC standard of how and artists should be paid. There is pressure to do more with some amount of money and also shows discrepancy between mainstream artists and minority and aboriginal artists. (MELISSA)

There is an online resource Crowd Source. There is a network that might support and artists. There is not experience known of the results for this resource in the Canadian artistic context. (MIKE)

There is an experience of capacity building between the production of a play and the Ukrainian community, which was the target audience. In order to engage the community, the theatre asked for funding and they created a mentorship program. It was the right fit because some of the people mentored became arts publicist and wardrobe crew. (ALAN)

Mentoring is a lucrative partnering, we have the expertise, they have the community (PATRICE)

Getting access to physical spaces has been successful (TITO)

Networks are a way to access to resources.

All aboriginal production of King Lear. Engaging people from the aboriginal community to act for free in a committed and respectful way. The way to engage them was using traditional trading, based on respect and exchange.

NEXT STEPS FOR OTTAWA COMMUNITY

Things get better with time when the grassroots network is strengthened and everybody looks for mutual benefits

Community engagement. Having round tables, consultations make a difference. To have an informal conversation about the use of resources can be a success to piggy back on those resources

It is important to have an initial conversation before engaging in a project.

Try to be more inclusive. Look at the stakeholders and invite them for a conversation.

Outreach. Who we can partner with in the aboriginal organizations and invite people to get to know better the spaces, resources and organizations (galleries, groups)

Track down people. Change the attitude and ask what is that you need, what are you producing, when you are a presenter.

Work with community leaders.

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Be innovative. Have fun, go back to play, colours, craft, exchange, beauty.

Next steps discussion: hopefully nine opportunities to meet over three years.

Important to determine our collective contributions.

All have to embrace something different.

OCTC: collaborative relationships could be key.

How to get to target audiences, example: community organizations, community health centre, accessibility important.

Need to know the community’s challenges for access to help bring people from the community.

Audiences suppose to researching. Coming into the community to guide usual artists.

Knowing what to expect when starting to build a relationship/ a community connection.

Peter Hintown, Aboriginal show in every season. They needed to determine what the relationship was first, lots of research.

Importance of bringing in cultural specialists who can speak about how to approach and manage the relationship.

To be an active audience for their work, if you expect them to come an support what you do.

The importance of long time relationships instead of the one off.

Relevant to note the commitment can be with the person and carry through.

Outcomes from community research. Feels like its transposing but not true. Researching in community.

Investment, listening, result. Relationships.

The importance of dedicating staff to manage and nurture the relationship.

Latin-American community festival.

Important for organization –cultural integration.

Leader of the communities are your partners, opening countless opportunities.

Messages aren’t’ get out about space (Shardman)

There were a variety of opinion on the immigrant to Canadian relationship

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(Howard) Indigoes Film Festival

Networking, partnerships, relationship, ground up relationship.

Great writing challenge, barriers for artists to get funding.

Partnerships were successful, speakers , spot light on local filmmakers, opening night on Victoria Island.

Successes: when venue popular and partnerships were popular. Audiences and artistic practices.

Isabelle Cisterna: ‘Neruda’ – check out what she is doing.

Francophone presence lacking in the room?

A lot of learning that can come from the Francophone community.

Embassies?

Not always a reliable relationship, sometimes politically based.

Cultural consultations are absolute.

There are money in US embassy.

Where do we want to go?Talking with one another now.

City run building, Ottawa school of arts, pottery, gallery’s shows, OIP- youth teacher group, studios, three galleries, all in the vicinity. A lot of community work, it’s an arts centre and not just a theatre or a conference hall.

Cross pollination – students and children need to be filled.

Partnerships. Complementing each other’s work rather than duplicating each other’s efforts.

Center for small organizations, Jerry’s organization CNCAC.

City has buildings that are unused around, there are some issues such as insurance but they can be used. Artists can be very self sufficient and can help beautifying the area.

Chinese heritage centre for rental 379 Keut Street, was first old united church, is opening this year.

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