dear Clive,
thank you for your double response.
I realize from your email that I was unclear regarding the terms of the project, and also jumped the gun a few steps.
I do think it would be helpful to speak over video - skype, zoom, however.
It would be good to speak about your questions, and to get a feel for your sense of the project, and if you think that it is a topic and project worth writing about.
I have already received funding from the CCA to do it: the work is just beginning but is already underway.
I have some answers to your questions below, but am happy to speak about this more.
I am not so interested in the question of regionalism, which I know Greg Curnoe made a point of at the beginnings of FCG.
I am approaching this from a concern for the employment conditions in artist-run culture, and more generally within not-for-profit organizations, namely, that the programming work is of a quality comparable to that of more prestigious art institutions, but the salary / operating budget is immeasurably smaller. So the project begins from an awareness of the working conditions of staff at arcs.
This is combined with an interest in the ways that arts funding bodies 'sculpt' the cultural field, by which I mean that funding bodies determine which forms of culture are prioritized, expressed, and made visible, by choosing which funds to make available, and in what quantity (for example the pre-covid pressure towards art with new technologies and collaborations with tech startups (see the "creative strategy" of the Canadian govt, which I see as evidence of a neoliberal pressure on artists to categorize them as creative entrepreneurs [ie for profit]).
Part and parcel of the neoliberal redirection of CCA is the greater availability of project grants as compared to operating grants.
This type of short-term funding generates the appearance of support, but also creates a structure of constant precarity, and administration (having to reapply for funding rather than receiving continuous support). This is relatively invisible to artists, who invariably are only eligible for project funds. This affects more marginalized ARCs, however. Since FCG already only has a single employee, it is faced with an overwhelming task: it is not possible for a single person to do all the work that is necessary to operate the centre. By way of my project, I am trying to create a supplement that both makes visible this lack, and augments it in an artificial way. By pointing my supplementary labour towards fund-raising, and supporting it by way of CCA (artist's) funding, the project has a recursive structure that circles around the austerity imposed upon operational budgets of ARCS.
While the 'success' of the project's enactment might be an increase in operational funding, the success of the project, for me, lies in the way it draws attention to the working conditions on the frame of artist-run culture, and the funding application procedure that frames those working conditions.
I am not sure if this answers your questions, but maybe it gives you a better sense of where I am coming from.
Let me know when would be a good time for you to speak,
and take care,
Josh
