Challenges for Artist-Run Centres. Reflections from Temporal Anchorings, IMAA’s 2024 Media Arts Gathering.

Challenges for Artist-Run-Centres

Reflections from Temporal Anchorings, IMAA’s 2024 Media Arts Gathering

by Laura Paolini ed. Salem Paige

The first day of the 2024 IMAA Media arts gathering, Temporal Anchorings, hosted a discussion with artist James MacSwain and filmmaker Eryn Foster. MacSwain was a founding member of the Centre for Art Tapes (CFAT) and Atlantic Film Cooperative (AFCOOP), and knows the tensions between being an artist and an administrator and where they integrate. MacSwain’s artistic practice was adjacent to the introductory discussion, as the focus was his hindsight on artist-run culture since the 1970s. The metaphor he used to describe it was “the wheel of fortune.” I’m unsure if he referred to the gameshow or meant the tarot card. Somehow both seem appropriate. Leaning on the latter, the constant in artist-run centres is change. According to MacSwain, this means both “going through the ups and downs of the culture you want to promote,” the pragmatic changes that happen both in the nuts and bolts of the centre (staffing, funding, etc), and the technological and aesthetic priorities that will change as we promote “the most interesting work going on in this country that nobody knows about.”

Tensions were felt around recognizing the need for physical and material means to keep this cultural work going, and ensuring our culture is supported by the public. After all, most of our core funding is from the nebulous “taxpayer,” who we, in turn, want to see at our events and screenings that showcase artists working outside commercial media.

Space

The biggest challenges for artist-run production centres like us relies on physical and virtual space. Right now, physical space for centres and affordable housing for artists is the top priority of our lives. At the last conference, the reality of acquiring physical space in increasingly gentrifying cities was heavily discussed. If we at Digital Arts Resource Centre (DARC) were not in a building owned by the city and had to pay commercial rents in Ottawa, I’m certain our mandate would be strained. Virtual spaces like Dropbox, Vimeo accounts, and other subscriptions needed to house key information about their work may already be causing strain on some centre’s budgets. I’m sure many centres are discussing what they can afford to do or lose. 

Revenue

In general, rental revenue is dipping across the centres. Any revenue from memberships and equipment rentals has a fee skimmed off the top from our POS service. Some of these ‘cost of doing business’ items are going to get costly. Adobe is increasing the costs of its subscription services next year because it can. The other centres anecdotally confirmed they are having both rental revenue and membership purchases flatline. 

What is our relationship with revenue as a not-for-profit? While this was asked on day one, it has some relevance here as my answer focuses on revenue as a metric: Revenue acts as a measurement for us about how much art is being made. The slump we have seen in equipment rentals does raise concern for me that our members may not have the financial support they need to make their work. 

We certainly do want the support of the public, and the project of educating what an artist-run centre is and why this art is important is constant. However, with the cooling of council funding and termination of certain key grants (the main preoccupation at the conference being the loss of the Media Arts Equipment Acquisition Fund), there are discussions on when to turn to the private sector for support and sponsorship.

That being said, we still give a lot away. I’ve noted that while a commercial rental house typically makes their money off c-stand and sandbags, sandbags are the #1 thing DARC is more likely to comp.

Preservation

Another big question is handling older tech, and the need for artists to be able to access their own work. There is a “don’t throw it out” mentality across the sector, and working with planned obsolescence in much of the newer tech is susceptible to. One organization discussed their program that provides training and resources to youth in Indigenous communities, working with older tapes and recordings that can be digitized and shared.

Another organization noted that the loss of equipment acquisition adds to their own maintenance concerns, as much of their equipment is becoming more rare and there is a lack of local technicians. This points to a larger “brain drain” smaller hubs are experiencing, and how artist-run centres create succession plans for their staff and tech. This will vary in formality from centre to centre. Don’t ask me how my onboarding went, I’ll probably start to cry. 

Relevance

What needs to break in artist-run culture, and how can we maintain a stable organization without bowing to capitalism? There is a risk of atrophy in the arts sector; if one space is doing everything some groups are left out. Whether it’s in programming or facilities, organizations need ‘space to fail in’ the same way our members do. Additionally, the material conditions to create work are under threat: housing, healthcare and livability impact everyone, though some are more heavily impacted than others.

Regardless of what we purchase next and whether we have the latest and greatest, there is a crisis of relevance that is quietly affecting our sector. There is a need to rearticulate our values to our community both locally and nationally. Similar to how the public managed to ‘show up’ for the OAC last year, there is a need to have our communities articulate to our funders that we are important, and adding your voice to the foray… it does impact their decisions.

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