Fwd: ARCA + The Employee

Begin forwarded message:

From: Stefan St-Laurent <>

Subject: Re: ARCA + The Employee

Date: 10 March 2025 at 21:39:37 CET

To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>

Cc: Lauren Wetmore <>, Direction AXENÉO7 <>

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On Mon, Mar 10, 2025 at 2:13 PM Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Stefan,

I’m very confused now.

From previous emails with M.A. I was made aware of the funding shortfall, and had understood as a consequence that the panel could be accommodated at Saw Club at 10am on Friday 13 of June so long as we found a way to coordinate our own funding.

I was only asking whether this was an official part of the ARCA conference, because it would be very appropriate and appreciated if it could be.

As much as I would be honoured to speak on a panel about Artist-Run Centres, I’m still convinced that a panel on the project along with other contributors, most if not all of whom will already be in attendance at ARCA makes far more sense.

I’m under the impression that Jonathan has already also spoken about a possible collaboration with ARCO that would also help patch over funding.

So to be clear, we want to do a panel at the time offered. We want to be part of the official program in this capacity. We will organize our own funding with the support of letters that we will write ourselves if they can be set on ARCA letterhead.

Please do let me know if this is workable or not.

Best regards,

Josh

On Mon 10. Mar 2025 at 18:25, Stefan St-Laurent <> wrote:

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Stefan St-Laurent

Artistic Associate

SAW   

On Mon, Mar 10, 2025 at 10:59 AM Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, I can do that. But is it fixed on your end that the panel will happen as an ARCA event? I just want to be sure before I invite others in that this will indeed happen.

Good luck with everything on your plate.

x

On Mon 10. Mar 2025 at 15:54, Direction AXENÉO7 <> wrote:

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█

 

M.A. Marleau

Directeur artistique / 

Artistic Director

 

Centre d’artistes AXENÉO7

80, rue Hanson 

Gatineau (Québec), J8Y 3M5

Facebook — Instagram — Twitter

axeneo7.qc.ca

direction@axeneo7.qc.ca

(819) 771-2122

 

  

 

 

 

De : Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>
Date : lundi, 10 mars 2025 à 06:00
À : Direction AXENÉO7 <>
Cc : Lauren Wetmore <>, Stefan St-Laurent <>

Objet : Re: ARCA + The Employee

dear M.A. and Stefan,
I am writing again here in the hopes of receiving some support and clarity. I need to know whether our presentation is a part of the official ARCA program or not. 

There is some urgency to this request, first, we need to invite our contributors, and the later this gets, the less possible it will be for other contributors to come. 

Second, given that there is no confirmed financial support coming from ARCA, myself and Lauren are in need of confirmation letters to support applications for our own funding. 

The remaining time being quite limited, we really need to hear back from you with official letters of confirmation / invitation by the end of this week.
Josh

 

On Fri, Feb 21, 2025 at 11:02 AM Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi M.A. and Stefan,

Thank you so much for your generous offer. We're delighted to accept. Please keep us informed about the financial options as they arise, and we'll do our best to secure funding. To make this process easier, it would be very much appreciated if you could send us an official letter of invitation, or rather a series of letters, specifically addressed to Lauren Wetmore, Bopha Chhay, and Michelle Lacombe to participate. 

We're also in touch with Art Met, and we'd love to do some kind of party or pop-up bookshop in the evening on Friday. Outside of AXENÉO7 would be a lovely setting for a soirée. Is that something we can make happen?

Timing-wise, this is actually looking like it will be the first launch in Canada, so this is very exciting, and a really big deal for us. We’re so grateful to be able to host this launch at the ARCA conference.

Warmly,

Josh

 

 

On Thu 20. Feb 2025 at 19:02, Direction AXENÉO7 <> wrote:

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—

 

M.A. Marleau

Directeur artistique / 

Artistic Director

 

Centre d’artistes AXENÉO7

80, rue Hanson 

Gatineau (Québec), J8Y 3M5

Facebook — Instagram — Twitter

axeneo7.qc.ca

direction@axeneo7.qc.ca

(819) 771-2122

 

  

 

 

De : Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>
Date : jeudi, 20 février 2025 à 07:41
À : Lauren Wetmore <>
Cc : Direction AXENÉO7 <>, Stefan St-Laurent <>

Objet : Re: ARCA + The Employee

dear M.A. and Stefan,

I hope the snow is starting to be cleared and that the ARCA conference planning is still moving forward despite the disappointing CCA results.

I wanted to follow up on Lauren's earlier email. 

Your last email didn't indicate whether the panel could go through as proposed if we found independent funding. Contributors are eager to write their own travel grants to attend and present the project at the conference, but if there are other obstacles that deter you from hosting the launch as a panel within the program, please do let us know so we can plan accordingly.

warmly,

Josh

 

On Sat, Feb 15, 2025 at 11:53 AM Lauren Wetmore <> wrote:

Dear M.A.,

 

A quick follow up on some recent news: It seems that Bopha Chhay will be in Montreal in June, which makes for a much softer travel bill (usually she is in Vancouver)! With Josh and Camille already at the conference, and Michelle also in Montreal, I think we could swing funding travel for this on a reasonable budget.

 

I’d be grateful to hear back from you next week about whether I can get started on a travel grant. 

 

All best,

Lauren

 

On 10 Feb 2025, at 11:21, Lauren Wetmore <> wrote:

 

Dear M.A.,

 

Thank you for this swift reply. We’re delighted to hear that our proposal was well received by the committee and that you have strong interest in this panel. I’m sorry to hear about your CCA application – it is these sorts of funding oversights that The Employee is addressing, which makes the context of the conference even more appropriate.

 

I’d like to propose that Josh and I submit a CCA grant to fund this panel and a launch at the conference. I agree that a collaboration with Art Met and FCG would be advantageous. Although, I suspect their finances are also prohibitive, and a grant will still be required. With your permission, we will put together a travel grant based on the panel this week. 

 

Feel free to let me know if you would like to hop on a video/call to discuss this further. 

 

All best,

Lauren

 

 

 

 

On 7 Feb 2025, at 17:13, Direction AXENÉO7 <> wrote:

 

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—

 

M.A. Marleau

Directeur artistique / 

Artistic Director

 

Centre d’artistes AXENÉO7

80, rue Hanson 

Gatineau (Québec), J8Y 3M5

Facebook — Instagram — Twitter

axeneo7.qc.ca

direction@axeneo7.qc.ca

(819) 771-2122

 

<image001.png>

  

 

 

 

 

 

De : Lauren Wetmore <>
Date : jeudi, 6 février 2025 à 05:02
À : Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>
Cc : Stefan St-Laurent <>, Direction AXENÉO7 <>
Objet : Re: ARCA + The Employee

Apologies Stefan – I was confused by the presence of Jason in our first email exchange, but of course it is you who we have been in communication with!

 

 

On 6 Feb 2025, at 10:59, Lauren Wetmore <> wrote:

 

Dear Jason and M.A.,

 

I hope these past weeks of upheaval have allowed you some points of respite. 

 

We are excited to hear how our proposal was received at your board meeting!

 

Looking forward to hearing back when you get a moment.

 

All best,

Lauren

 

On 8 Jan 2025, at 13:23, Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com> wrote:

 

Dear Stefan,

Thank you so much.

We look forward to hearing from you again following the upcoming meeting.

Warmly,

Josh and Lauren 

 

On Mon 6. Jan 2025 at 18:24, Stefan St-Laurent <> wrote:

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Stefan

On Sat, Jan 4, 2025 at 7:20 AM Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> dear M.A. and Stefan,
> I hope you both had a good holiday and were able to get some rest. And Stefan, it was good to meet you at the Salon a couple of weeks ago.
> M.A. and I spoke a bit, and they suggested that I send a proposal for a panel at the upcoming ARCA conference, which is attached to this email.
> Please do get in touch if you have any questions, or need further information.
> wishing you all the best, and hope to hear back from you soon.
> Josh
>
> On Sat, Dec 21, 2024 at 5:50 PM Lauren Wetmore <> wrote:
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Thanks for this introduction, Josh, I’m delighted to be in touch with you, M.A. and Jason.
>>
>> Presenting The Employee in this context would be ideal – I would be very keen to join the conference and the panel. Perhaps, if we can get some coordinates set early in the New Year, we could consider a CCA travel grant.
>>
>> Looking forward to hearing your further thoughts on this collaboration.
>>
>> Warmly,
>> Lauren
>>
>>
>> On 20 Dec 2024, at 17:58, Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> dear Jason and M.A.
>> thanks so much for the productive meeting yesterday.
>> I just wanted to follow up about presenting The Employee in the context of the ARCA conference, and to loop in Lauren Wetmore, who is the incredible, indefatigable co-editor of this publication. I am really excited about presenting the project and publication in this context. I think it is really an ideal public for this project!
>> In order to dig into this, I want to establish a clear framework in which to present the work. I think it makes sense, given the conference format, to present a panel with other contributors to the book who are in close proximity to Ottawa, such as Michelle Lacombe and Camille-Zoé Valcourt-Synnott. This presentation would allow people time to access and discuss key points in the project and publication, and to generate discussion around critical topics such as funding distribution and labour / art, that the publication raises and that are central to ARCA's mandate. Would it make sense to both of you to work towards this presentation format?
>>
>> I know that planning is still pretty open-ended, but at this stage it would still help to know what resources I could offer Michelle and Camille to support their travel / accommodations, and or when I would know the dates that this information would be known, so I could invite them with adequate lead time.
>> I'm also adding a brief description of the publication so you both have more details about what the book covers.
>> warm wishes for the holidays,
>> Josh
>>
>>
>> The Employee was a year-long conceptual artwork by Joshua Schwebel at Forest City Gallery in London, Ontario (2020-21). One of Canada's first artist-run centres, FCG has been publicly funded for almost 50 years, yet is staffed by a single, part-time employee whose disproportionate workload is not uncommon in artist-run centres in Canada. To realize The Employee, Schwebel obtained funding from the Canada Council for the Arts to hire a performer, “the employee”, who he delegated to write funding applications on behalf of FCG. Schwebel intended to reinforce the gallery’s capacity, while the gallery, in turn, provided the framework through which the performer’s administrative activities would be signified as art. Ultimately, none of the employee’s grant applications were successful.
>>
>> This book, also The Employee, is a publication of critical texts and first-person testimonials by artists and cultural workers reflecting on Schwebel’s work and their own labour contexts. As Dana Kopel, writer, labour organizer, and a contributor to this book, writes, “The Employee documents a year of precarious work as a lens into the crumbling infrastructure of the regional gallery system and labour in the arts more broadly; it prompts consideration of the often detrimental ways that contemporary art production relies on both corporate and corporatizing state funding models that exist primarily to serve the expansion and entrenchment of capital. In doing so, the work implicitly also poses the question: What can we, as art workers, do about it?”
>>
>> The Employee is edited by Joshua Schwebel and Lauren Wetmore and includes contributions by the editors and Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte, Teresa Carlesimo, Bopha Chhay, Dana Kopel, Michelle Lacombe, Denise Ryner, Camille-Zoé Valcourt-Synnott and Marina Vishmidt.
>>
>>
>>