Patti Pon: As we begin our time today, I’d like to call upon my colleague and teammate, Sable, to offer a welcome.

Sable Sweetgrass: Hi. Oki. Niitaniikowa Nato Ohkotoksakii. My name is Sable Sweetgrass, and my Blackfoot name is Nato Ohkotoksakii, which translates to Holy Rock Woman. Thank you for joining us today. And I actually just wanted to acknowledge that yesterday was Red Dress Day here in Canada, and this is a very significant day, it acknowledges the ongoing missing and murdered Indigenous women that’s taking place in our country and in our city. This is something that our community has been dealing with and addressing for decades. It’s decades. And I thought I would just read some, some facts from the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls site, the AFM site.

So Indigenous women make up 16% of all female homicide victims and 11% of missing women, even though Indigenous people make up 4.3% of the population of Canada. Violence against Indigenous women and girls is systematic and a national crisis that requires urgent, informed and collaborative action. Indigenous women are three times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be victims of violence. And current public data on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls oversimplifies and underrepresents the scale of the issue. It still demonstrates a complex and pervasive pattern of violence against Indigenous women and girls who are often targeted because of their gender and Indigenous identity. The 2014 RCMP operational overview notes that police recorded 1017 incidents of Aboriginal female homicides between 1980 and 2012 and 164 missing Aboriginal female investigations dating back to 1952. There have been a number of reports indicating numbers are significantly higher. From 2001 to 2014, the average rate of homicides involving Indigenous female victims is four times higher than that of homicides involving non-Indigenous female victims.

I think it’s important that we acknowledge this. And, and that this is also taking place here in our city. This affects me personally. I know the women who have been victims here in our city. I would like to mention four of them: Gloria Blackplume, who was a member of the Kainai nation where I’m from, was taken from us in 1999. I went to school with her sons, Darcy and Junior at the Plains Indian Cultural Survival School here in Calgary. Jacqueline Crazybull was taken from us in 2007 along 17th Avenue. Her sister is a very good friend of mine, and also both of them are both from the Kanai Nation. Joey English from the Piikani Nation, and her mother is a friend of mine, Stephanie English. And a good friend of mine from high school from the Plains Indian Cultural Survival School, Selena Ann Curly who was taken from us in 2019, here in Calgary.

So I needed to mention these people, these women. And I think that, you know, this is something that we really need to start to look at because this, as I mentioned, it’s ongoing. And I think that because the pandemic has taken centre stage, a lot of things have been overlooked. And so I just needed to mention that, to bring that up, and to bring it to people’s attention again. I think we just, we just can’t forget. Thank you.

Patti Pon: Thank you very much, Sable, for your welcome and for sharing with us the significance of yesterday, and how we should all remember, every day, those women and girls who we have lost. In conjunction with the Sable’s sharing, and her welcome, I also want to be sure that we acknowledge where I’m speaking with you from, and I think many of you are with me on the traditional territory of the people of Treaty 7, and that is made up of the Blackfoot people, the Niitsitapi, comprised of the Kanai, Piikani and Siksika First Nations, the Blackfoot Confederacy, which also includes the Îyâxe Nakoda people comprised of Chikini, Bearspaw and Wesley First Nations and the Tsuut’ina people. We are, this is also the traditional home of the Métis people of Region 3.

And I think, you know, some of you who maybe undertake your own land acknowledgments and territorial acknowledgments, I welcome you to put those in the chat to share that with us if you feel so inclined. Because as Sable says, you know, that the land acknowledgement isn’t something just to show how woke you are. It isn’t about how we’re all doing this and you know and I know that some of you, I’ve had conversations with you where, when, when we were in the before times and could have our pre show chats, you would give the acknowledgement and you’d actually get complaints from your audience members about why, why do you have to do that again? What is that all about? The thing is when we, when we undertake these things because they have meaning to us, then they will have meaning for our audiences. And so I invite you and encourage you to think about when you provide a land acknowledgement, or you welcome stories from members of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities, or seek the guidance of Elders, that you actually understand the meaning behind it. And the meaning more importantly for you about why you’re doing it, and so for us it is because our reconciliation journey is at the core of how we are working, going forward in good ways, recognizing different ways of being, and knowing, and acknowledging each other for who we are.

You know all of us today call this place home, wherever you are, and along with that brings its own kind of responsibilities and accountabilities that you will identify and you will articulate for you. And our ask of you, my ask of you, in this time is that you recognize, and, and think about the Original people who were first here to help take care of this place and this land, because then that will make us all want to take care of each other. And I think that’s a pretty good thing.

So on that note, I’d now like to ask my teammate and colleague Melissa Tuplin from our community investment team to go over a few meeting protocols, as we begin our town hall with you today, over to you Melissa.

Melissa Tuplin: Hello everyone. Welcome. Nice to see everybody in this space.

As you can see we have two ASL interpreters with us today, Shelly and Sue. Our gracious tech support, Ben Nixon, is going to be spotlighting their screens, as well as the speakers for you throughout the session. We are using a transcription app called otter.ai. If you’d like to use the transcription, click the red box at the top of the screen. It is only in English for the time being and it’s not 100% accurate, but it can be used to follow along today’s conversation. But we can also use the closed captioning embedded in the Zoom as well. So if you wanted to use that you could click the bottom of your screen, it should say closed captioning. Again, we can’t guarantee that everything will be spelled correctly, but it will give you an okay idea of what’s being said. Now you will notice that this meeting is being recorded. It is being recorded for future reference and to share with folks who can’t make this time work. So if you would not like to be visible in the recording, just keep your cameras off. When we release the recording we will include an accurate transcript of what’s being shared, as well as the chat box. Again, Ben, you see him on the screen there, please chat with him if you have any technical issues or accessibility questions.

If you have joined us in town halls before you’ll know that Calgary Arts Development uses group agreements, and by attending today’s town hall you are agreeing to abide by those group agreements. There was a link included in the registration page for this event, and it can also be found in the chat box for reference. I believe one of my teammates will share it there. And finally, there will be a question and answer period at the end. When I’m working in the office, I realize that traffic exists, excuse me. There will be a Q&A session at the end of the session, so if you have any questions throughout today’s gathering, submit them via the chat through our social media channels, or to info@calgaryartsdevelopment.com and we will try to get to those at the end of the session. So back to Patti, thank you.

Patti Pon: Many thanks Melissa.

So we haven’t gathered for quite a while, and a lot has happened here at Calgary Arts Development, so we wanted to just take some of your time today to fill you in on what’s been happening for us and also allow for some time at the end of our session today for any questions that you might have. If questions do come up, please be sure to add them into the chat, and members of our team are tracking them in a document, so that we’ll make sure that we get to all of the questions that people ask today. So, on that front, I am going to start off a little bit with a state of the arts, what we’ve seen, what we’ve observed over this last little while on a variety of fronts, and, well, we’ll just go, we’ll just go from there.

So, Calgary Arts Development, we have a four-year strategic framework. It lines up with city council and their election cycles of four years. So, currently 2021 marks year three of the four year cycle. And we have two priorities. Our first, our number one priority is to foster and encourage a sustainable and resilient arts sector. For us, that’s about creating the conditions where artists and arts workers, and those who are supporting the arts sector in Calgary, trying to create the conditions where you can do the amazing work that you do, which in turn leads to fostering our second strategic priority, which is arts-led city building.

Here at Calgary Arts Development, we believe in the power of the arts to build strong, amazing communities that all citizens deserve, not some. And, you know, needless to say, 2020 was a humdinger of a year, as is 2021, and that this time has afforded us, I was in another session today where we were talking about what all the kind of buzzwords were that we’ve learned in the last 18 months, like “pivot.” If I never hear that word again in the context of our work, I’ll be super happy. But adaptive capacity – that’s a term I use a lot. Being flexible. Being nimble. All of these kinds of ways in which we are having to change what we do, and in some instances in quite dramatic ways. And certainly, when we encountered, or as we headed into March of 2020 and Calgary Arts Development needed to look at, you know, how were we going to undertake our work in support of the various communities within the arts sector that we work with most closely, the big focus for us was people first, was people centered.

And so when COVID-19 landed, our response was led by our three Rs: relief, recovery, resiliency. And you know it’s quite interesting at the time I thought, oh yeah relief, a couple of months, few months, and we’ll have a longer period of recovery because it’s going to take a bit of time to get, you know, back into the swing of things, and then you know resiliency, 2021 – we’re on the path. Yeah. Anyway. So I was wrong. And I think, I think we still are in a time of relief, or maybe we, you know, relief, recovery, resiliency might not necessarily be that order, but that we sort of go back and forth and and come at it from different ways and so there are many ways into those three Rs. And one of the things when I think about the relief side of it right now is I believe the arts communities and artists will be, a, are a welcome relief for our community at large as we find ourselves in this prolonged period of time. And we see the anxiety and we see the frustration and we feel the impatience.

The arts sector will be a relief and a salve for our community. And I think a lot about that in terms of the work that we will do at Calgary Arts Development going forward, not only in the rest of 2021, but beyond that. You know, we’ve already seen the arts be a relief. Y’all remember back a year ago, how the, how people leaned on the arts? All of the online content, even now bingeing on all kinds of, of work. All of you who are producers and the work that you’ve, you’ve transitioned to online experiences and the kind of feedback that you’re getting, the people who picked up their guitar again, or their paintbrush again after 20 years, started up their book clubs again. All of those things don’t happen without artists. They just don’t. And so, I’m very conscious of that and the importance that artists bring to connect us, and to bring meaning to our lives, and to make us feel like we belong somewhere. And that’s, that’s all of you and I really want to thank you for, you know, on top of trying to keep your own organization’s going concerns, you also deliver that piece. And that shouldn’t go unspoken or unacknowledged. So I do want to thank you very much for continuing to be that relief, and, and to offer that to the communities that you serve.

In terms of our granting activity in response to COVID-19, it included a $1.5 million short-term relief fund that was almost immediate, it was within days of the announcement of the closure of the public ban on gatherings. The City in turn then made a one-time allocation of $2 million in emergency relief funds, which were supported through the online programming grant with the Rozsa and Calgary Foundations in partnership. And then our regular granting programs made for a kind of busy year. We invested $12.6 million in 2020, which was a 28% increase over the previous year, through more than 600 grants, with the same size community investment team. So for those of you who might have had relationships, or do have relationships with any member of our CI team, find out what their favourite drinks are, find out what their favourite treats are and make sure you send them some because they had a hell of a year last year. And I am so grateful for them, and the amazing work that they did. With our community collaborations, some of you may have taken part in Chinook Blast this past February, where a number of civic leader organizations, many of them in the arts, came together to provide amazing experiences in a safe way for our citizens. Some of you may have been a part of our Rise Up YYC activities which is a coalition of civic partners, and arts organizations to keep the arts present during this time of COVID, where experiences were provided and encouraged that involve safety first, both backstage and in front of the stage, ensuring people’s safety. Second thing was hyperlocal, we’re promoting Calgary’s art scene. And the third thing was those who were working deeply in collaboration, and in partnership to make these amazing experiences for Calgarians and we look forward to seeing what will happen this coming summer.

In addition to those events and activities, we also host a series of Rise Up Relaunch lunches, which are industry conversations. We just had one this afternoon where we were talking about, you know, the, the, the challenges when, you know, there’s restrictions and then there’s an ease and then there’s restrictions and then there’s more restrictions and how do you even plan, how do we even work together, how do we try and make our way through this and so there was a great conversation today. We are advocating particularly with the Province right now around developing an industry protocols manual similar to what, if any of you work in film and television, trying to ensure that Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services are aware of the degree of expertise and professionalism that exists in the live arts and culture industries, so we can get our people back to work. We’re working on a creative economy strategy that we hope to release the initial framework on sometime in June in time for our Report to Community so maybe you’ll join us then.

And I want to have a special shout-out to Kaley Beisiegel and her firm Bird Creatives, who we’ve worked with for a long time, but their work on Rise Up has just been phenomenal. And whatever strides we see, we see because of the guidance of Kaley and her team, so many thanks to you, Kaley, for that. We also are regularly in touch with our cohorts in the other two orders of government, so municipal, provincial, federal – the three orders, tri-level, to ensure that our funding activity is aligned. You’ll hear from Mat Stone shortly about some of our work, concerning the experience, the live experience economy and some data that we’ve been gathering to hopefully give you as much information as we can about when you can get back up and going again, get started again. And something that I didn’t think I’d ever be engaged in, involved in, but am, Calgary Arts Development is a supporter and proponent of a basic, a universal basic income guarantee for artists. And so we’ve been working with four other cities in Canada and their municipal Arts Councils—Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal, and Edmonton, as well as Calgary, to work with the federal authorities on how we might set up a basic income guarantee. In that regard, that’s the long game for us but you may have seen the shared article that we had published in The Globe and Mail several weeks ago. We can probably maybe put a link in there, in the chat.

Okay, I’m almost through.

We know that there’s no crystal ball, and again the conversation today at the Relaunch lunch was really around that, that, you know, how do you read the minds of people who maybe don’t even have the answers themselves, and so I think what we’re trying to do is really do what we can. All of you in the industry, presenters, producers, exhibitors alike, you know, what you need to do to keep your audiences safe, and your audiences are exactly that, they’re yours, so they trust you. So we want to make sure that we’re gathering as much as we can to create that set of protocols, or checklists. We’re not even sure what we’re calling it yet, but Kaley is working with a group of organizations and individuals. There are a number of coalitions that have come together, like the Alberta Live Event Coalition. There’s the outdoor festivals, Alberta Outdoor Festivals Coalition. There’s a music venues consortium, working within those frameworks, as well as an occupational health and safety expert to really try to standardize some of these protocols, so we can give assurance, as best we can, relying on the science, to get our folks, and all of you up and working and running again in ways that you want to be. It is a slow, frustrating, anxiety-ridden process, and I wish we could move faster, but all I can say is I think we have, we are getting traction.

And as one of my colleagues Sol Zia said, you know, if you’re not feeling frustrated, then you’re probably not talking to the right people. Because you know, we’re one sector among how many across the province that are asking the very same things. And so we’re just trying to make sure that we have our place at the table as well, and that there is understanding and knowledge around what it is that our industry, our sector brings to the wellbeing of our communities. For any of you who have been working with us in any kind of way you will have seen our work in equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. That is how we phrase it at CADA—EDIA.

It has accelerated and intensified in this time.

Last summer we hosted a series of anti-racism town halls. We will continue to host a series of town halls this summer coming up and fall, so stay tuned for that. We’ve created an EDIA staff working group, and have commissioned an EDIA community working group to examine our commitment to EDIA at every level of our organization to further develop anti-racist policies and practices governing our work, including recruitment, access to granting programs, procurement processes, community engagement, we’re undertaking an EDIA and equity audit this year. We’re amplifying the stories of artists who reflect that broad, variety and cultural diversity of our city through the Storytelling Project which includes a new web series called Living a Creative Life, hosted by Adora Nwofor. We’re continuing our reconciliation journey and in right relations with Aisinna’kiiks, a dinner and dialogue series that we co-host with the Calgary Board of Education, participation on an Indigenous funders circle, and, of course, our work through the Original Peoples Investment Program led by Sable Sweetgrass who you heard from earlier.

And finally right now, we’re providing administrative support for the Black Lives Matter mural project facilitated by Pink Flamingo, which is a series of four murals that will go up this summer funded by The City, and led by Pink Flamingo. Stay tuned and keep an eye out on our social channels about the calls for artists that will take place and the engagement activity.

Okay, enough from me for now. I am going to now turn it over to Melissa for an update on our 2021 grant investment programs.

Melissa Tuplin: Thanks, Patti. Well, as you heard last year was a medium busy year for our team, and I am, as always, intensely grateful to Marta, Taylor, Sable and Van for the work that they do with you and for our communities. Our 2021 investment programs are now in full swing.

In Q1, we piloted a new program called the Artist Development Microgrant, which was funded through the Cultural Vitality Fund from an anonymous donor through the Edmonton Community Foundation and Calgary Arts Foundation, which was a total pool of $130,000. We’re very grateful to those donors for their generous support. The program was intended to support artists who had been impacted by COVID-19 and offered up to $2500 for professional and business development activities, as well as to adapt or complete existing work that had been impacted by the pandemic. We received 149 eligible applications requesting approximately $315,000, and we’re able to support 66 artists and collectives investing just over $131,000. In Q1 as well, we are now in the final phases of reviewing operating grant interim reports, and we’ll have disbursed approximately $6.7 million in operating funds through that program by the end of Q2.

In addition, we have also made 13 grants through the ArtShare Program, investing $165,000 in equity seeking artists and arts organizations to date. Program guidelines for ArtShare are not available on the website. Grant investments are made through a one-to-one proposal process and relationship with a Community Investment staff member. This program runs throughout the year and it does not have a specific timeline, so please contact me if you have any questions about that program.

The Original Peoples Investment Program is in the assessment phase now. Applicants will be notified of the results in early June, and we’ll be investing $550,000 through that program. The Project Grant for Individuals and Collectives Program opened on Monday, May 3, this week, and has a deadline of June 14. Applicants will be notified of the results by late August. If you are interested in applying to that program, full guidelines are available on the website, and you can contact Taylor Poitras—the specialist for individuals and collectives with any questions. That program is open to individual artists and arts collective based here in the city, and has a pool of $1.1 million dollars.

And finally the guidelines for the project grant for organizations program will be published this upcoming Monday, May 10. We will begin accepting applications to that program on June 1, with a deadline of July 12. Applicants will be notified of the results by early September. The project grant for organizations is open to registered non-profit arts organizations here in the city, as well as to current operating grant clients. The pool for that program is $800,000. Once the guidelines are released, you can contact Marta Ligocki, who is our specialist for organizations with any questions. And I am going to pass that over to Sara Bateman to talk about the Organization Structural Change grant. Thank you.

Sara Bateman: Thanks so much, Melissa. And hi everyone thanks for joining us. Just really quickly, a few of you know about this new grant this year called the Organization Structural Change grant. And I just wanted to pop in here and talk a bit about it. It is a one to one conversation and we created it this year because some of our research was showing that the, well we all know the arts was impacted so severely with the pandemic, and we saw some signs that demonstrated some arts organizations would have to make some tough decisions around how they operate, and that could be, you know sometimes mergers, closures, but also could also look at strategic partnerships, who should we partner with around our operations, and just to look at how to do it differently.

So I just wanted to highlight that. If your organization is looking at different structures, as you look at coming out of the pandemic, do give me a shout. All of our guidelines and background are on our website, but give me a shout, and we can start a conversation if that’s of interest to you and your board. So back over to Patti.

Patti Pon: Thanks so much, Sara and Melissa, for that update. And I do want to just particularly note the generosity of the Calgary Foundation for their matching support to the Cultural Vitality Fund which was led through the newly formed Calgary Arts Foundation. Thanks to their match, we were able to direct $400,000 to supporting individual artists who were so severely impacted by the pandemic and really appreciate that recognition.

So, in March of this past year, Calgary Arts Development was announced as the recipient to take on and lead the public art program of The City of Calgary. This new direction for public art is a three-year transition period effective immediately. And we’ve undertaken significant work in the areas of arts development and city building, and from 2012 to 2020, thousands of citizens participated in a community consultation process to develop a city-wide arts development strategy called Living a Creative Life – An Arts Development Strategy for Calgary. And it focuses on how the arts touch the lives of all Calgarians and how we might work together to create the conditions where Calgarians can live their most creative lives. So, when The City of Calgary made the announcement that the public art program would best be implemented by a third-party provider, Calgary Arts Development explored the opportunity and the option and the possibility of our submitting a bid to the RFP process and really kind of undertaking our own due diligence to ensure that our participation or leadership of the public art program aligned with the vision, values and mandate that CADA was originally set up to serve.

We learned a lot about the program, about the impacts on CADA if we were to take on the program, and also tried to be very thoughtful about what the benefits were that we would be able to bring into this kind of an opportunity. Our board of directors struck a committee specifically to explore this possibility chaired by artist Jeff de Boer and we prepared what our response to the RFP would be. We didn’t say yes to everything that was being asked for, but instead we tried to lay out that within Calgary Arts Development, this is what a public art program at CADA would look like, and that if that wasn’t something that satisfied what The City was seeking in a proponent, then it likely wouldn’t be a match. So, we just tried to be really open and honest about what we thought we could do. And to our delight and pleasure, The City announced the awarding of the contract to us and it is a contract, we were negotiating, we spent the early part of 2021 negotiating that contract. And it really, as I said, aligns to how many of you have heard me talk about CADA as a public agency stewarding public dollars in the interests of the public good. And, and when I talk about the public good, that means artists as well. Artists pay the same for a litre of gas and a loaf of bread and rent, you don’t get any special break. And so I wanted to be very clear that as Calgary Arts Development, when we talk about public, we also talk about the very communities that we were created to work with, and to walk alongside.

So with regard to the public art program, we then thought about the program in the context of public art for the public good. And so there is where you start to see that kind of alignment, that we’re talking about. And over the past several years, we’ve deepened our relationship with a variety of community leadership organizations and participated in a number of successful collaborations, some of which you heard me talk about earlier. Those cross sectoral collaborations require trust, common goals, hard work. I’m telling you all things that you already know. And our public art program is going to get stronger as we all work together in that development. This is not something that we’re going to keep, you know, our arms around only.

One of the facets that we believe we brought a benefit to the table that we believed we brought, was our ability to build good relations in good ways. I hope, I think we’re good listeners, and we try to respond in a thoughtful way. And, and as my predecessor, Terry Rock, used to talk about our view to engagement is ask widely and ask often. So that we want to be in a continued kind of dialogue with all of the communities who want to have conversations with us concerning public art. So, all that being said, I do want to say we’re not starting over. The public art, public art in Calgary, so not the program, but public art has been present in Calgary and a part of the city of Calgary’s life for 100 years. So it wasn’t about a 2004 Public Art Policy. And so that’s the legacy that we will build from. And moreover, and more importantly perhaps, there is a legacy of art and art installations telling our stories on this land in the public realm since time immemorial. That is the tradition that is the history and the legacy that we have to build from and Calgary Arts Development is just thrilled to be engaged in this moment in time as a steward of this program for the benefit of the public good. And so on that note, I would like to invite my teammate and my colleague, Gregory Burbidge, who is our interim director of public art. Over to you, Greg.

Gregory Burbidge: Hello all. This is Gregory speaking. Though I know many of you here, there are a lot of folks here that probably haven’t gotten to work with me. I’m your interim public art director. Those that already do know me are more likely to have been in relation with my role as the research and policy manager with Calgary Arts Development.

I’m originally from Flin Flon, the original northern border of Treaty 5 territory, home of the Ininew people, Métis region of The Pas. I lived in a few places but I spent a pretty formative 10 years working in Atlanta, down in Georgia, primarily home of the Cherokee people. Though I’m a research fiend, I’m pretty excited that for now I get to spend some time working on public art again, something I’ve done a few different places in the past, in Atlanta, helping them launch a regional public art program. And for the past couple of years, I’ve done some evaluation work with the Bloomberg Foundation on their public art challenge down in public, down in Parkland, Florida, exploring how public art can be used as a tool for community healing in response to gun violence. Sometimes over the past couple of years that work responding to gun violence felt like we’re talking about specific singular events, historical events, their high school shooting, but you know there’s, there’s a lot of things right now that doesn’t feel like history, and that we’re working on a public art project that sadly is continuing to be relevant in other ways.

As Patti said, I’m an interim director, which means there’ll be a permanent director, alongside many other new roles. We’ll be spending the summer posting and recruiting for a variety of positions for our public art team, from engagement and communication folks to two new managers, a director. We expect the director search to be a national/international search, and plan to have someone in the team this fall, who can really help shape a vision for public art in Calgary that tells the story of who we are, can craft and curate a collection that supports that vision. So keep your eye open on the classified ads, subscribe to our newsletter, if you’re not already, the easiest way to see when all those postings go up. If you see a posting and you’re interested, but you’re not sure if it’s a fit, call me. We are working diligently to decolonize our hiring process. You’ll never see one of our public art postings go up and say, please do not call, email, do not email, only submit. What we’re interested in is in being in conversation with people. So if you’re excited about a position but don’t know if you’re a fit, call and have a conversation. I want to talk with folks about what we’re hoping to achieve with the program and see if that’s how people really want to spend their days, and if CADA can support the kind of folks that are going to bring this program to life.

On a side note, the collection isn’t just the stuff outside that gets snow on it in the winter. That’s what we often think of as public art, and that’s what we talk about in public art and in the newspaper. The public art collection in Calgary is around 1400 pieces, and only 200 of those are what you think of as outdoor sculptural works. There are 1200 other pieces of art that The City has in its collection that get programmed throughout the city, places, gallery spaces, windows, offices, all kinds of places. We’re pretty excited that part of our role is helping to activate that and ensure that that part of the collection is also publicly accessible in a meaningful way. This is a three-year transition. We have six months to get our house in order and staff up before we actually start tackling projects in partnership with The City this October. That’s when you’ll start hearing more about programs and projects that we’re working on, and the many ways we’re hoping that you are also going to be engaged in our public art program. Y’all as Patti said, you are all taxpayers, y’all are part of the public, and the public good that we strive towards in terms of public good is a public good for you as well. I think that’s all I have, maybe for today. If you watch the website, or that newsletter for the week of May 17, I think that’s when we’re hopefully going to get those first postings up. Thanks Patti.

Patti Pon: Thank you very much, Greg. And I keep talking about it every time I get a chance to, Greg’s just done an amazing job of just jumping right in and, as I say, drinking from the fire hose, in terms of trying to really understand the scope and the scale of, of the work that we have ahead of us. But it’s really great work and I’m very appreciative of that.

In terms of some upcoming events, I want to take this time to ask you to mark your calendars for June 9 from noon to 1:30pm for this year’s virtual Mayor’s Lunch for Arts Champions. The official announcement with all of the details of how to join the virtual gathering will be posted soon on our website. And at the event, we will be announcing the recipients of the cultural league… Hello… I practiced that… This year’s event will also announce the recipients of the Cultural Leaders Legacy Artist Awards. The event will also give us an opportunity to say thank you to Mayor Naheed Nenshi who has done so much for the arts community, and done such an amazing job in his time as mayor, and leading a council that’s really been there for the arts. So I hope to see you all there.

Now, you heard me talk earlier about some of the partnerships and the relationships that we have and are blessed with being a part of. And I’d like to now call on Janet Bwititi. I never pronounce your name right. I’m gonna practice that. I’m gonna practice that, Janet, to provide us with an update on what’s happening at Creative Calgary. Over to you, Janet.

Janet Bwititi: Great, thanks, thanks, Patti. It’s great to be here. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much to CADA for inviting Creative Calgary to share what we’ve been up to. My name is Janet Bwititi, and I am the co-chair of Creative Calgary steering committee. And I’m also the director of marketing and sales at the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.

For those of you who are not familiar with Creative Calgary, the group formed in 2017 ahead of the municipal election with a primary goal to advocate for a significant funding increase for the arts. The sector really came together and through this collected effort, this goal was realized in 2019, when arts funding almost doubled from $6.4 million to $12.4 million. It really was a historic investment in our sector. And late last year, a steering committee was formed, made up of 10 volunteers. And earlier this year, we brought on a project coordinator. And we have been exploring establishing a professional Arts Alliance for Calgary. We had a public information session last month. I’m sure many of you who are on this call were at that, that session. And we launched our arts sector survey. And this is because we need to hear from the community. How do you think an Arts Alliance would best serve you?

In addition to advocacy, should we have a forum for information sharing, to collaborate on city building initiatives, and more? And many of you on this call have already responded to the survey, so thank you very much. We had actually set yesterday as the deadline, but since we were invited to speak to all of you today, we’ve extended it to tomorrow at 5:00pm. So, whether you’re an artist or an arts administrator, or volunteer, we really want to hear from you. It should take you about 15 minutes to complete, and you will find that on creativecalgary.org/survey, which is up on the screen. Also, our project coordinator Simon MacLeod who’s on this call, he’ll drop the link into the chat. And we will be sharing the next steps through another online event in the, in the coming months, so please look out for that notice. And if you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you’ll find on our website as well.

Now, I’m sure everyone on this call knows how important the arts are and how, you know, we will all play a huge role in the recovery from the pandemic. And we have a municipal election coming up this fall, and it’s going to be a defining one for the city. At the moment there are at least seven seats without incumbents running, including the mayor’s. And we need to ensure that arts-friendly candidates are voted in, and that the historic investment made in 2019 is not impacted. So all of us can play a role in this, we can all make a difference. So over the next coming weeks and the next few months, we will be sharing information on the campaign. So, again, please sign up for our newsletter and make sure that you’re just up to date on everything that’s happening and learn more about how you can get involved. Great. Thanks, Patti.

Patti Pon: Thanks very much, Janet.

One of our other partners that we’ve had the great pleasure of working with over several years is Mathew Stone from Stone-Olafson. And currently, the work that Mat and his team are undertaking on our behalf concerns the live experience economy, and how we get back on our feet and how we monitor what consumer confidence, what audience behavior and thoughts and feelings are during this incredibly complex time. So I’d now like to invite Mat to speak a bit about what you’ve been finding throughout the various phases.

Mathew Stone: Hi Patti. Thanks for having me. I learn so much when I attend these town halls. Congratulations to you and your team for all the great work that you’re doing.

Thanks for having us. I’m going to share my screen if that’s alright. I’d like to bring up, as Patti had mentioned, we’ve been working with Calgary Arts Development, and several other organizations to bring a community resource to leaders in the experience economy. We know that all of you are facing significant challenges and you need hard facts to help you understand what audiences are thinking and what they want to know in order to reconnect with them. So a big thank you to Sara, and Greg, and Patti and team at Calgary Arts Development for investing in this and supporting it along with the other organizations here: Calgary Foundation, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and others, Rozsa Foundation. Their investment has been critical in partnering with us to bring this to, so this is a community resource we want you to be able to use it. There are five phases of work.

What I want to share with you today is just a few highlights from some of the most recent waves of work we did in March. All of our research is founded on the principle of watching what’s happening in the pandemic and reacting to it and understanding how Albertans are feeling at the time. And the most recent wave of work that we have was completed in March when the cases were at their lowest. And we’ve done previous phases of work when cases are at their highest, and so we now have a better understanding of how Albertans and Calgarians are reacting to this and some of the key themes that you maybe want to be thinking about. All of this research for the research geeks in the world—Greg I’m looking at you, will want to know when we’re looking at a sample that is very robust of 1300 Albertans. So, this is a longitudinal study which is a little different than normal, meaning that we’re following the same people through the pandemic to see how their attitudes and emotions and mindsets are changing over time. It’s matched as the population overall.

The first thing I want to talk about is comfort. As you well know, comfort is probably the new variable that we all have to deal with on top of understanding of our arts, as well as costs, as well as availability, and we all have to think about it. And because of the pandemic, the way it is, it’s shifting, the comfort levels are shifting in direct step with a lot of the variables that we’re seeing in the market right now, particularly case numbers, restrictions, and now vaccines. And as case numbers declined in March, we saw comfort levels starting to rebound from when they were really low in December. The challenge that we’re finding right now with the market and Albertans generally is that we’re and you see this in the media is an increasingly polarized population where we have a large portion of about 30% who are very comfortable in large groups and just want to get back at it, and we have another group at the other end of the spectrum who aren’t comfortable at all, and want to stay in their small groups. The vast majority are the, 46% of the plurality sit in the middle of that medium comfort. They’re following the rules. They want to be only in that one group.

But this polarization is starting to happen and we’re starting to see it in the market. We have to follow this because it’s not until we get to a certain level of comfort that we understand how populations and audiences will want to come back and engage in live events. We know that it follows case numbers and we know that it follows restrictions. But that red line and lots of you are very familiar with this now, none of us thought we would be, but we are, is that’s the progress of case numbers. I adjust it daily and it keeps going up right now. And the blue line is our average number of Albertans who are comfortable with groups of people. And early in the pandemic, when cases were low, it was right around 5.9, so in the middle of the care group. And when case numbers jumped up in December, comfort dropped, and then it rebounded as case numbers dropped. And now you can only imagine where they are now, we’re gonna be doing this again in late May, early June, we can guess that our audiences are in a very precarious spot. It is a little bit of a psychological whiplash.

It’s not just comfort though that we have to think about as leaders. We have to think about their emotional state. And ultimately, we know that Albertans are very tired, but they’re also very frustrated and annoyed. There’s exhaustion, impatience, and stress. These are obviously negative emotions but they’re not the same as other ones that we see here like worried, or angry, or sad. What they are signs of is a market that is a) tired of the pandemic, obviously, but also signs of a market that is ready to go and pent up and really wants to get reengaged, so that’s good news for us. Because we know that when restrictions lift and when we’re able, that we’ll be able to reconnect with audiences because they want to go back.

The reason why you need to think about comfort, is that there’s a pattern to it. It’s not going to go away instantly as soon as the pandemic has gone away. Some of these trends are going to be long standing. But it’s important for us as leaders as we’re planning and messaging and continuing to engage, to keep our finger on the pulse. We have to recognize how messaging and programming choices are going to land with the audience who is feeling this way right now. And some things that we want organizations to be thinking about that they can think about doing is to tune your messaging accordingly. If you’re engaging, and we strongly encourage you to be engaging right now, there’s so much great content being developed, it’s crucial to make sure that we’re reassuring them that there’s some element of positive and productive approaches to that. But engagement’s not just about messaging, it’s also about programming. And so looking at those programming options for the time being, that are a little bit more uplifting, less challenging, more positive, only because we want, that’s where the audience is at, and they’re less likely to respond to those things that are going to be more challenging.

Now we’d never thought that vaccines would be a key element of engaging in the arts, but they are right now. When we ask Albertans, what’s it going to take to reconnect the top thing on the list is obviously vaccines, getting vaccinated, or seeing other people vaccinated. There’s an interesting community principle that’s emerged since the beginning of the pandemic where perceptions of risk, perceptions of concern are now more community orientated than they are personal. So it’s interesting and important to see that seeing other people vaccinated is important. But Albertans are also gonna be following the stats, and they’re going to want to see case numbers drop. You’re going to want to watch this, because they give you clues as planners to when you can start to reconnect and heighten your engagement tactics.

One of the things that we get asked a lot is, what proportion of Albertans need to be vaccinated before people will feel comfortable. On average, about 61% is what the level Albertants are saying. 61% need to be vaccinated before I’m comfortable. At last count, we’re about 36%. So we are almost halfway there in terms of a level of comfort. But comfort is going to vary by risk takers and we know that they’re a risk taker by risk capacity, and risk takers are already there, they’re ready to go. But the bulk of the population sits in the risk reducers category and the risk avoiders. And ultimately, we know that’s going to take some time before we get to the vaccination level, and people are going to want to reconnect. This is important for you to keep an eye on because it’s a, it’s a way of planning, and looking forward ahead. If you’re watching the progress of vaccinations and it’s moving really quite quickly, you might be able to more reliably consider when you can relaunch programs as an example, or when you want to time your communications, so incorporate into your planning. We know that it’s moving along at a clip. If you can do that, then it’s going to help you.

Now, another thing that’s really important is attitudes. And one of the things that early on is people are adopting lots of new activities, but it’s safe to say that that banana bread phase is getting a little stale for most audiences. For the most part, your audiences feel like life is on pause and that’s, that’s a reality for them. But we also know that some of their habits are changing and 78% are saying you know because of the pandemic and restrictions, and, this is an important thing to keep an eye on because early in the pandemic we saw lots of research, people that were presuming that this was going to be generational defining and values are going to change. And it’s certainly generational defining but it’s not necessarily changing values. That’s not how values work. But, as you well know habits are key to engagement, and habits are shifting. So they’re just following the restrictions, which means there’s going to be some headwinds for a while. That said, there’s still pent up demand because large proportions, 84% are saying you know I can’t wait to rediscover those things that I used to do, so they want to get back. And yes, there are still those who are reprioritizing what’s most important at 67%. And they’re shifting towards those mental states, things like well being, my own well being and family. So we’re watching those things, and we’ll come back to this reprioritization because it’s become highly personal and there’s lots of opportunities for organizations to tap into that.

Now, when we look ahead and it’s really important when we think about where they are right now, and are they engaging in new activities? Yes. 3% are telling us, “I’ve got a lot of new activities and interests” and they’re, they’re finding completely new things to do. But by and large, the audiences are saying you know what I’m filling my time, because I can’t do what I like to do normally, but I’m also sticking with things I’d like to do before, so even if I can’t do them in the same way as before. So lots of audiences who used to engage with art forms in particular may not have been able to attend, but they’re responding with the digital. There is still also a smaller proportion who are saying you know what, I have no new interests, I’m not taking on anything new, I’m exactly interested in exactly the same thing, but it tends to correlate with the risk tolerance as well.

When we look ahead, and everybody’s crystal ball is broken. Not to say that this is a projection of what will happen, but it’s consistent and helps us understand that, you know what, by and large, the population is going to go back to a lot of the things they used to do, but change is not alternative. What I mean by that is, they’re not replacing all the things they used to do with new things.

In fact, it’s additive which means they’re going to be adding in lots of new activities. And in previous phases of work, the pandemic has heightened acceptance and interest in self-directed activities that are creative, or that are easy, that are flexible, easy to take there and do. So, looking ahead, organizations can know that you have an audience that’s going to come back. But we’re going to have to work a little bit harder and competitive with them going to compete with other activities. So yes, the banana phase is getting stale, and they’re filling their time, absolutely. We know that they’re waiting to reconnect and they’re going to bring many of those new activities with them as things loosen up. But as we know from earlier phases of work that Albertans are experienced pursuers more than anything else, and this is a really important thing, because we need to recognize across all sectors that there are very few vertical sectors where people are saying I’m a distinct fan of only this one thing, an art form, or an activity. In fact, they’re not. Albertans, families tend to follow lots of different things. They’re samplers, and this is great because it means we have opportunities to reach more audiences now.

There’s going to be a need for incorporating all the things they used to do with their new activities. So how can you think about it? Well, one, start thinking about those alternative modes of programming delivery for over the long term. Habits are changing, and it’s the same type of reaction that traditional cable companies even had to adjust to streaming platforms. We saw audiences with a strong desire to try different things. They’re in the same mode right now. And I think at the end of the day and you think about the absence of those self-directed activities and traits that people are getting tired of, right, where they can do all these things on their own, they’re going to gravitate more towards those experiences that are more interactive, that are less transactional, higher value that are differentiated and unique when they’re able to get back into it. And the arts community in particular has an advantage there.

Last thing I want to bring you up to speed is around revenue. We get a lot of questions about generating revenues in the current market. And ultimately, what we know is it’s going to require some flexibility. When we think about other habits, in terms of flexibility and their desires for adaptation, it extends to payment models as well. We know trends before the pandemic, we’re moving away from subscription and we asked them right now, “How would you, if they’re offering experiences, how would you prefer to pay?” Or people who are looking at arts and culture offers or attractions are more likely to look at single ticket purchases, whereas people looking at investing in personal fitness or sports and recreation are more likely to look at members subscription models as well.

It reflects a desire to, for flexible, flexibility and self-directed in choosing their arts and culture experiences, which is important in their attractions experiences. I don’t think that this is necessarily a new trend but like all things with a pandemic, the pandemic is accelerating lots of trends, and this might be accelerating it. So, we’re gonna have to think about how we want to capitalize on that over the longer term. They are considering support, though there right now they know that their organizations are challenged for revenue, and when we ask them what different modes of support, we know that there’re 32% who are willing to buy gift cards so they can use later, or pay for a service in advance, donate, and buy discounted passes. But only 46% saying, “Listen, I’m not going to give any money at all, I’ll wait to see what’s going on.” When we probe in on that donate to an organization, we know that there’s that willingness to donate in exchange for experiences, but only if they’re not forced to do it. So it’s important that we make sure that that’s an option as a way of support, and in a lot of other research those messages of support are critical, because the audiences want to support the artists and the art form.

What does this mean for you as a takeaway? Well, the desire for flexibility and activities also extends to financial support. And audiences are, they’re there, they want to be here with us even if there’s not a guarantee of a full experience. They just don’t want to be forced. I think part of it is an indication there’s enough rules around us right now, give me the option, and let me decide for myself. So just as you’re considering your flexibility and how to adapt your offerings, you might have to think about how we adapt or be more flexible in our support options. Look at flexibility and payment options, prepayment gift cards, those kinds of things can be very valuable to short-term, particularly as you’re thinking of ramping up and people are starting to think about what they can possibly do. Donations are going to be an option for sure to look at. And I think this is going to be a long-term thing, but that less demand for seasons passes and subscriptions, I think it’s going to be important for this sector, but all sectors in the experience economy.

The model of subscriptions or memberships is fading away as audiences have the ability to self-select. We’ve seen it with entertainment, we’re seeing it with media, we’re seeing it with the news, we’re seeing it everywhere. It’s a matter of time now as it extends into the experience economy as well.

Now, a final few thoughts, we’ve got five phases of work. We’ve talked to thousands of Albertans about how they engage and there are some things that we’re starting to see that are really important. I think the first thing we’ll leave you with here is that this is not your typical crisis. And I know, master of the obvious, but a typical crisis and how we respond to it is a matter of managing an event that happens for a very short period of time to a small group. This is the opposite of that. And that means then as leaders we have to recognize that priorities are shifting slightly. The perceptions of risks and things that they’re going to consider and their habits have altered, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re permanent, they’re just going to be with us a little bit longer. The good news is their values are staying the same. So many of the things that we’re seeing right now are going to fade away as conditions abate, but other things are going to stick around, so expect some of the headwinds that we’re experiencing now to last for some time until habits become cemented, or reconnected in a new way post-pandemic.

The other big thing about the pandemic and this is a natural outcome of a health crisis is that this is absolutely personal. When we talk about people’s priorities changing, they’re shifting to be more focused on family, health and wellbeing. Now I’m not here to say that those factors or priorities were never important, they were always table stakes for any individual. But what’s different right now is that they’re heightened in their consideration. And while they may have always been taken for granted and everybody just assumed they’re there, they’re now part of people’s active consideration set. It’s in their variables when they’re thinking about what risks they want to take. So no longer do they think about participating in events only in terms of what will happen to them, but they also think okay well if I participate, do I catch COVID? Do I share with others? Do I put others at risk?

So a lot of this is going to change over time. I think there are great examples in the fitness world, Peloton is one to use that they’ve done very well with this, because what they’ve done is they’ve capitalized on a message of well being and health in an immersive digital environment. But you think about the experiences across the economy and experience economy, particularly in the arts and culture there is great opportunity given the value and the intrinsic benefits that come with the arts, and how they connect with people in bringing people together, sharing with family, mental health and wellbeing of the long term.

Last point I’ll leave with you, and I could chat all day long about this, but adaptation is going to remain absolutely vital for the long term. This is a trend that was started before and it’s going to be accelerated. We get asked a lot about the pandemic and what it’s done and it’s accelerated all sorts of trends: digital, how we work, how we communicate, and now, how people are experiencing. And pre-pandemic, the biggest, one of the biggest barriers emerging was people seeing the same thing, or the same type of experience would dissuade them from reconnecting again. They wanted variety, that’s continuing now because choices have been more limited, and organizations are going to have to be even more flexible and innovative. And we’re going to have to adapt our programming and our business models to take that into account in the long term, and recognize that there might be greater opportunities, if we start to collaborate across the sector.

This is a community resource thanks to people like investments from CADA, so leaders can access more of the data and insights, everything is available free, free, free and we want you to use it. And our team is here to help as well, so we welcome inquiries if you have questions. And you want to get more out of it, and we’re happy to help on that regard, I’ll put the link in the chat as well.

Thanks, Patti.

Patti Pon: Thank you very much, Mat. You know, I’m always so grateful that because of the kind of partners we have like Creative Calgary and Stone-Olafson that we can actually share these kinds of information that I hope all of you find useful and helpful as you make decisions in what as Mat said is an incredibly adaptive time. It’s a flexible and nimble pivoting – all those words again, right? Like all leading to uncertainty. So how can we help to bring you some good information? That just even adds that little bit more of insight as you think about your plans ahead.

Now, in addition to the great work that Mat and team have done for us, as part of our own research work, our research and impact team are currently working on the analysis of the Professional Artists Survey that went out last year with the intention of publishing the results this spring. And so, I’d like to call back, my teammate Greg, to give us an update on maybe that, and another research project that’s coming up soon. Gregory.

Gregory Burbidge: Hello again, Patti. This is Gregory speaking again. Aside from being your interim public art director, I’m also the research and policy manager, and I think we all know which job sounds cooler. It’s great following Mat, there’s nothing more fun than a longitudinal study. What we’re talking about right now is not longitudinal. Apologies, Mat.

Every four years, CADA does a demographic survey of the volunteers, staff and artists that are participating in our arts community. We do this to better understand who’s participating, in what ways we are and are not, reflecting Calgary’s rich diversity. Four years ago we launched our first survey, and this month we’ll be launching our second iteration of that survey. We received some great input after our last survey and integrated into our new survey. There are some question changes, but the biggest changes are around timing and implementation. Instead of dragging this out for a whole, whole year like we did that last survey, we will be running this survey for about four to six weeks. And it will start at the end of May and run until the end of June or early July.

The other input we heard was around implementation and making it useful for individual organizations. And that last iteration of the survey, we collected the community-wide data, aggregated it all together, put out a report, let a lot of people know about what our arts sector broadly looks like. This time around, we partnered with a third party research team, Data Arts, who’ve done surveys like this all over North America, and have worked with the best thought leaders, demographic language out there. They’ve come up with a tool so that we can see aggregate information. We, at CADA, can see the aggregated information for the whole sector, not individual organizations, but the individual organizations, if they have enough responses, we’ll be able to see information about their own organization and how it compares to the city to organizations who work in the same discipline, and the arts sector broadly. We know organizations are trying to do the work around equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, but often with limited research resources. We think this is going to be a great tool for those that are interested in using it. In the next few days, actually, arts organizations that have received funding from us will get an update from Marta on the grants team, our organizational grant specialist, with a bit of information. The survey is mandatory as part of the contracts for operating grants clients, but for the first time we’re actually going to invite organizations that received funding from us through other channels to also participate, so we can get the best picture possible of the whole sector. And because we don’t want to hog all of the research fun. So you should be expecting an update, an email from Marta, either late this week or early next week. Thanks Patti.

Patti Pon: Thank you so much, Greg, for that update. And yeah, I mean I hope that for many of you who we have relationships with that our sort of movement in this research and impact area really is about finding, collecting data that we can actually in turn then bring forward to you and make useful to you. You know, I think, traditionally in the past, grant funders in particular would just collect masses and masses and masses of data, so we could, you know, give rationale and reasoning to why we do the work that we do. I don’t know that it was so helpful to those of you who are actually doing the work that we invest in and support. And so, you know, as Greg said, our hope is that this, this data, while yeah it might take some effort and some extra work to fill out, our hope is that the findings that we’re able to then return to you for use in your organization will hopefully merit and and give value to the time that you’re taking to contribute not only to the well being of informing all of us as a sector, but even then again in your own information and your own decision making for your company.

So that’s it for the updates that we wanted to bring to you. I don’t know if any of you had any assumptions or things that you thought we would talk about, but we’ve left the last 15 minutes or so to allow for that. I know that Brian asked a question earlier in the chat and we also had a question submitted to us prior to the town hall, so why don’t we answer those two questions and then if anybody else has questions, please add them into the chat, or you can raise your hand, and one of us will see that and we’ll make sure we get to your question.

The first question we received was, “If an arts organization, collective, or independent curator exhibition administrator is applying to CADA for project funds, should the artists in the project be receiving an artist fee, and does CADA expect to see this as a budget line in an application?” And I wonder if I can call on Sara to answer that for us.

Sara Bateman: Thanks, Patti. And just for context, this question is actually quite a bit longer and nuanced for their specific organization, so my team will be answering some of the more detailed pieces for their organization, but the simple answer is yes. The expectation is that artists are paid. For the purposes of project grants, applicants are coached to provide breakdowns of their budget calculations, including artists fees, but ultimately we look at our peer assessment committees to determine if the proposed budget for artists fees is in line with professional standards. Paying artists falls into all criteria of our project grant programs, as it speaks to the artistic impact, community connection, and planning. So, yeah, we want to see artists paid, full stop, so that’s the answer. Patti, you can go to the next question.

Patti Pon: Thanks very much, Sara. The next question we have is from Brian concerning an update on the previous positions to be on the board of directors, as well as community members involvement on the board paid and unpaid positions.

Brian, I just want to ask a clarifying question. So, all of the board members at Calgary Arts Development are volunteer positions, so we don’t have any paid positions on the board. We have volunteers, we have other volunteer roles, for example being grant assessors on our programs, where again it is a volunteer role. However, we do make a reading fee, available as well as cover, when we were meeting in person, you know, things like transportation costs, or parking costs or those kinds of things and an honorarium, because we recognize that the expertise we’re seeking has a value, and we want to acknowledge that. So I just wasn’t quite sure if you were talking about the board member positions, or maybe some of the positions, or job positions that we advertise for. Wasn’t quite sure.

Brian Pham: Yeah, I know that they were on the website previously before you guys have taken over with Calgary. I know that there was a few postings that were up for grabs in late 2020, but now that you guys have taken over. I was just wondering if those positions were still available, or if you guys were transitioning those positions over or is it just you guys have taken over the program, and it’s, it’s, it’s brand new, in a sense,

Patti Pon: With regard to the public art program, you mean.

Brian Pham: Right right right right.

Patti Pon: Gotcha. Okay, so, so the public art program will fall under the auspices and under the stewardship of the board of directors of Calgary Arts Development. Needless to say, because we have the public art program, we will certainly look for board members who bring that expertise, you know, I’m just seeing a question in here about, you know, acknowledging public art as a professional field, a discipline in and of itself. And so, you know, when I talked about Jeff de Boer being the chair of our, the subcommittee that contemplated whether we submitted the bid, we know we’re going to want to have that knowledge, that expertise at a governance level, as well as on the staff level, so as we begin to understand better what the scope of the public art program is, you will certainly see us seeking board membership, as well as staff expertise in the in the months and years to come.

Brian Pham: And then will those, will those positions or whatever you, whatever experience you guys are will be looking for, that will be posted on the website right?

Patti Pon: Yep. Yeah, whenever we do a call, so, we post those on our website or you can subscribe to our newsletter and those kinds of things. With regard to our board appointments, we have a governance and HR committee that puts together a slate of candidates and nominees, so every year they go through a process of determining what sorts of needs we have for the board, and they’re actually currently in the phase of contemplating what is the nature of the governance, of the public art program. And so, so once they know that then they can then develop the profile if you will.

So you’ll see a call for that come out. I don’t know if it’ll be sort of this year, we’re sort of uber focused on the staffing side, but definitely next year, because we appoint members on an annual basis for a maximum of six years. You’ll see stuff. And if you have an interest, there’s no reason to not be in touch with us and let us know that you have that interest. We do keep sort of a list of people who have volunteered with us previously, or who have a particular interest, and we’ll make sure that those names go forward to our committees.

Brian Pham: Sounds good. Thank you so much.

Gregory Burbidge: This is Gregory speaking. Patti, I’m going to pile on to your answer. We’ve gotten a good number of questions the last couple of weeks, very similar and all super interesting to us as well, about some of the positions at The City of Calgary related to the public art program and how that relates to CADA and the public art program.

The public art program, commissioning of new work, some of the activation of the collection, the real host is now Calgary Arts Development. But things like the conservation of the collection actually stays with The City of Calgary, so you may have seen recently, as recently as I think last week, week before The City of Calgary continues to post positions for hire in The City of Calgary public art program, because there is still some work that The City will be doing, so it’s, it’s not quite a clean cut, 100% of everything, all the positions and things that you see on The City’s website are just going to disappear and we move over to CADA, that The City is going to maintain the team it needs to conserve, activate their collection still at The City of Calgary. So, if you see things on The City website, there still is active recruitment over in The City of Calgary side.

Patti Pon: Thanks for that Greg. And maybe you can also address any question or any part of the question that we see here: How is CADA going to continue developing a public art program that looks at public art as more than a tool to pacify and respond to social ills. Public art is a professional field to develop a resilient and sustainable arts sector. Oh sorry, public art as a professional field, comma, to develop and sustain a resilient and sustainable art sector, public art in Calgary needs to be able to stand up within a national and international level within this field. What is CADA’s vision to ensure this field in Calgary stays critically relevant, and at the cutting edge of public art? Thank you.

Gregory Burbidge: Patti, this is Gregory speaking.

First off, Helen would tell you, Helen on our communications team, the comma is always very important, don’t, don’t miss the comma.

The question has a lot of layers. But to address part of it around standing up within a national, international level, and recognizing this is a professional field, I don’t, I don’t want to run away from the kind of things I should, should be saying right now. But yes, we recognize it as a professional field. And it’s not just the, it’s not a playground for folks that suddenly look at something outside and say, “I could do that.” No, it’s a professional field. We would love to engage folks in the work in many ways, but we recognize that public art is best done by public artists.

To get back to The City of Calgary put out an RFP last fall, and a big focus of what, what we were really interested in is what can we deliver as a program, not just what does The City want us to say that we would deliver the program, but what would be really important to us. And throughout that very long bid document that we put together for The City was the theme of education opportunities. We have one of the few arts education, arts universities in Canada, arts post- secondary schools in Canada. They have not been fully engaged in the public art process in ways that they could. They were very excited about our bid, and about opportunities to engage with us around opportunities to get their students more engaged in public art, educated around public art, provide programming for public artists to elevate what it is that they’re doing in ways that make them more competitive for local bids, as well as international bids.

I think we’ve, I think we’ve all read the international trade agreements that apply to public art when public art calls are over $75,000. But there are all kinds of regulations that apply to public art, international regulations. And we want local artists to not end up excluded from those bids, just because all of a sudden international artists are competitive. We want local artists to be just as competitive. And so it’s about getting not just Calgary, not just the artwork that’s taking place in Calgary, but Calgary artists, need to be able to stand up with that national, international level that you’re referring to.

We’re also looking forward to working with folks like AUArts and some other partnerships around educating the public, around what makes up, what it means to have a public art program with a vision, so that public art pieces aren’t just taken out of context, or out of the context of this is one public art piece, there’s two others that we talk about, how does this relate to those. We want to talk about a program with a broader vision, how public art pieces fit into that vision and what you’re trying to accomplish with public art. It fits into a much larger vision, not just singular one by one work of art. We’re hoping to bring along the public in this conversation, so that we can all have a bigger conversation about public art, rather than singular pieces of public art.

I feel like I, I’ve been drinking from the fire hose, I could be talking about this all day. I don’t know how long you would like me to answer this particular question, but the things that you’re raising are very important to us and reflected in the bid that we ended up putting in The City. Don’t forget the comma, Patti.

Patti Pon: Thank you very much. Thanks, Greg. I don’t think I see any more questions.

Am I correct? I don’t. And I’m scanning. I don’t see hands raised.

So I think we’re good in terms of addressing anybody’s questions.

So on that note, I’d like to thank all of you for joining us today. As Melissa said earlier, we are recording this session so that for those of you who may want to see a particular piece over again, or want to share it with others, you’re welcome to do that. We’ll also have a transcript prepared so that if that’s easier for you to have a look at, We’ll be sure to send out all of that information to you once we have it all done.

And, yeah, I, again just thanks all for taking the time with us. Many thanks to all the members of the CADA team and Ben, our interpreters, Shelly and Sue for being with us. And our next time with you will be sometime towards the end of June when we do our annual Report to Community, so stay tuned for that. And of course, I’ll see you on June 9 at the Mayor’s Lunch for Arts Champions. Take care everybody. Be well.

Bye.

15:04:26 From * Tech Support – Ben Nixon (he/him) to Everyone: Hello everyone! I’m here to help you with any of your tech needs. Feel free to post in the chat or send me a direct message.

15:07:51 From Lesley Hinger to Everyone: Thank you Sable

15:07:58 From CADA Taylor Poitras (she/her) to Everyone: Thank you Sable <3

15:08:11 From CADA Helen (she/her) to Everyone: Thank you Sable

15:08:17 From CADA Stephanie Solomon (she/ her) to Everyone: Powerful. Thank you.

15:09:44 From CADA Van Chu (she/her) to Everyone: Thank you Sable; let us not forget all of them

15:14:28 From Maya Choldin (She/Her) to Everyone: Thanks Patti. I am also on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, the Métis Nation (Region 3). I am grateful to be on the journey for me and my organization towards a deeper understanding of our connection to the land.

15:23:33 From Shelley Youngblut (she/her) to Everyone: An industry protocols manual would be so valuable.

15:26:11 From CADA Helen (she/her) to Everyone: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-canadas-largest-municipal-arts-councils-ask-for-a-basic-income/

15:32:27 From Calgary Public Art Alliance to Everyone: is there going to be an update on public art?

15:33:36 From * CADA Patti Pon (she/her) to Everyone: Yes there will be an update on public art 😉

15:36:29 From Brian Pham to Everyone: will there also be an update on the previous positions to be on the board of directors as well as community members involvement on the board – paid and unpaid positions if I recall…

15:36:51 From Brigitte von Rothemburg to Everyone: Thanks Patti! So happy we could contribute.

15:37:56 From Cherie Novecosky she/her to Everyone: Congratulations!!! Very exciting news!

15:38:00 From CADA Helen (she/her) to Everyone: Brian – we can come back to your question in the Q&A.

15:38:12 From Brian Pham to Everyone: Cheers!

15:47:19 From * CADA Greg Burbidge (he/him) to Everyone: There is nothing more refreshing than drinking from a firehose!

15:51:10 From Simon MacLeod (he/him) to Everyone: Survey: www.surveymonkey.com/r/CreativeCalgary Website: www.creativecalgary.org

16:04:18 From * CADA Greg Burbidge (he/him) to Everyone: It’s interesting to think about that Banana Bread phase. Those puzzles that seemed like fun last April don’t seem that great anymore in my home.

16:11:07 From Cherie Novecosky she/her to Everyone: Great information!

16:11:22 From * Mathew Stone to Everyone: https://www.stone-olafson.com/insights/experienceeconomy-results

16:12:51 From * CADA Patti Pon (she/her) to Everyone: “There’s nothing more fun than a longitudinal study”….ummmmm

16:16:17 From Stacey Perlin to Everyone: As always, so appreciative of the work you do, CADA! The quality information provided, through the presentation of insightful data and resources, is vital to the resilience of our community.

16:17:20 From * CADA Greg Burbidge (he/him) to Everyone: For those that want to brush up on the results of the last demographic survey, you can browse that report here: https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/publications/equity-diversity-inclusion/

16:17:54 From Calgary Public art alliance to Everyone: How is CADA going to continue developing a public art program that looks at Public Art as more than a tool to pacify and respond to social ills. Public art is a professional field, to “develop a resilient and sustainable art sector” Public art in Calgary needs to be able to stand up within a national and international level within this field, what is CADA’s vision to ensure this field in Calgary stays criticaly relevant and at the cutting edge of Public Art.  thank you

16:24:28 From Brian Pham to Everyone: thanks Greg and Patti

16:25:10 From CADA Helen (she/her) to Everyone: haha

16:29:02 From Michele Gallant (she/her) – Calgary Fringe to Everyone: Thanks so much, CADA, for all that you do! Much hugs all ’round!

16:29:39 From Cherie Novecosky she/her to Everyone: Thank you so much!

16:29:44 From Scott Carey to Everyone: thanks!

16:29:51 From dick averns to Everyone: Thanks Patti and everyone at CADA, and those pitching questions.

16:30:06 From Vanessa – Platform Calgary to Everyone: Thank you Patti and CADA team!

16:30:08 From Dale Turri to Everyone: Thanks everyone. Have a great weekend.

16:30:10 From Cherie McMaster to Everyone: thanks to everyone for joining and sharing today!

16:30:10 From Patti Neice (she/her) lunchbox theatre to Everyone: Thank you to all involved in today chat. Helpful and informative

16:30:19 From Wendy Passmore-Godfrey to Everyone: Thank you – for all your work

16:30:22 From Brian Pham to Everyone: very comprehensive well done everyone @CADA

16:30:34 From isabel Porto to Everyone: Thank you!