INTRO
LATHAM
Welcome to Artful Conversations, a podcast about arts and cultural management. I’m Annetta Latham.
INGRAM
And I'm Katrina Ingram. We interview leaders who help shape the world of arts and culture, sharing their stories, insights, and observations.
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LATHAM
Welcome to Artful Conversations, I’m your host Annetta Latham. Joining me today is Simone Brault, CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts. Simon, welcome. The Canada Council for the Arts is a national public arts funder. Can you tell us a bit about the history of the Canada Council for the Arts and its mandate?
BRAULT
Yes, the Canada Council for the Arts was established in 1957, so almost 61 years ago now. It has been created and inspired by the model of the British Arts Council. The idea was to create a crown corporation that is independent from the government, at arm's length from the government, with the mandate of promoting the enjoyment of the arts in Canadian society, and support of the creation of art and literature and by Canadian artists.
LATHAM
Wonderful, thank you for that. You took on the role of CEO of the Canada Council in 2014 following a long career as a speaker, and an author, and a leader in various cultural institutes. You've also been called the “culture warrior.” That's a great title. What motivated you to take on this role?
BRAULT
Interesting question. I served for ten years before coming here on the board of the Canada Council as a volunteer. I had been the vice-chair of that organization for ten years in a row, which is a very long mandate. During those years I was also the CEO of the National Theatre School in Montreal, really working with young aspiring actors, designers, playwrights, technicians. I also was involved for years in advocating for a bigger role for arts and culture and our society. I did it through involvement in an organization called the Culture of Montreal, but also by writing a book that became quite well known in Canada with the title of No Culture No Future.
I was offered to consider the possibility of becoming the CEO of the Canada Council. It was kind of a nice conclusion to a long journey to give more meaning to arts and culture, and trying to come up with a vision of renewing public support for the arts.
LATHAM
Right, we've talked about the high-level mandate that Canada Council for the Arts has as a national public arts funder. The Canada Council reports to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Can you further expand on this reporting structure, and what it means to the way that the Canada Council operates?
BRAULT
Yeah, the Canada Council gets its budget through what we call a parliament appropriation. It is the Parliament of Canada, by voting on the budget of the country, that decides what will be the level of funding of the organization. I am, as the CEO, appointed by the Governor-in-Council. So it's really an appointment by the government. My role is as the CEO, and I also have a board appointed by the government.
My role as a CEO is to report on a daily basis to my board. So to the board of trustees, yes, but also to report to Canadians, to the Parliament, to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It is done in very formal ways, like when we do have to publish an annual report and it’s presented in front of the Parliament. Sometimes it involves going to Parliamentary commissions on culture, or on finance, and answering the questions of Parliament about what we do and how we deliver our mandate.
But it is also reports through many informal mechanisms. Like there is a meeting of all the portfolio agencies – there's the CBC, the National Film Board, Telefilm, and all these organizations – we are all part of one portfolio, and we would meet regularly at the same table, and meet both the deputy minister and minister from time to time, to discuss issues that are related to the role of the state in terms of maintaining and nurturing a lively cultural landscape in this country.
LATHAM
In addition to being a funder, the Canada Council is also a voice for artists nationally and internationally. Can you speak about some of the work that the Canada Council undertakes internationally on behalf of Canadian artists?
BRAULT
We are obviously the national funder in Canada, but we also are members of an International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies, who are really active, doing more or less the same thing in their respective countries. Actually, I'm a member of the board of that international organization, so it means that on a regular basis we try to share our own perspective on cultural policies and advancing the cultural democratization in the support of the arts. It's also, for us, a matter of building bridges with other countries and other nations. Those bridges are very important to share not only ideas, but also to support the circulation of artists and of Canadian productions, our books, our literature.
We are very active, both to support the international outreach of Canadian artists and artistic companies, but also to develop a sense of reciprocity with the other countries who are sending their artists and their cultural presentations to Canada. For us, it's a very important priority, and what we do more and more is try to make sure that what we present, our support for the rest of the world, is reflecting not only the best of the best in terms of artistic creation, but also is reflecting the different conversations and debates and discussions that are happening in our society. For instance, the huge conversation that is happening right now on reconciliation with the Indigenous peoples of this land. We make sure that we don't present Canada as if you were presenting a nice postcard, but that we present Canada with its greatness and its challenges.
LATHAM
And that’s done in other places around the world too, Australia is focusing on those kinds of things as well.
BRAULT
And we have a lot of what we call bilateral exchanges with other countries, and other arts councils. Australia is a good example, England too. We're working right now on a project that will happen in Ottawa in May, and that's the organization of the first meeting of the public arts funders of all the Americas. We're inviting and convening leaders of public funding of the arts coming from the 34 or so countries in the Americas. So, it's also part of developing those dialogues with other countries.
LATHAM
Wonderful. In the bilateral agreements that you referred to, did you see it as a way of Canadian artists being able to engage on an international platform?
BRAULT
It's a way to do it. It's one of the different ways, there are two big ways we do it. One is we get, from Canadian artists or Canadian artistic companies, proposals because they want to tour internationally, or they want to co-produce internationally. And those proposals are evaluated here. The most promising one will get direct support from the Canada Council. We could also do it through memorandums of understanding with other countries, or at the occasion of some international platforms like the Biennale in Venice. Every two years there's a Biennale on architecture, there’s one on the visual arts, and the Canada Council is really active and involved to support the artists or the architects who are presenting to those Biennale. It's the same with the major book fairs in the world, like the Frankfurt one. There are many ways for us to promote the Canadian artists and writers all over the world. Over the next four years, our intention is to double the level of investment on that front.
LATHAM
That's wonderful. And talking about change and things moving forward, the Canada Council has recently made some pretty significant changes outlined in your strategic plan called Shaping a New Future, which is being described as a bold plan for the future for the arts in Canada. Can you tell us more about what motivated these changes?
BRAULT
When we crafted that vision for five years, so it goes from 2016 to 2021, we knew that our new government was ready to double our budget over five years. Which was really a bold statement, and a big vote of confidence towards the work that we do at Canada Council. We started from the perspective that doing more of the same should not be an option, that doubling of our budget should be transformative, and that we should really support the emergence of new voices in the artistic landscape of the country. We came up with a set of very concrete priorities. One of them is around Indigenous art. We feel that there's momentum right now in Canada to really give more attention, and more power, and more capacities, and more means to Indigenous artists to express their voice and their desire in a context that is not Eurocentric anymore, but that is really in their own world views. So really, the notion of supporting Indigenous arts in the context of self-determination.
That's a big priority, and another one is around the need to better reflect the diversity of our country in terms of the workforce of the artistic organizations, in terms of the programming and the governance of those, and also the audience of the artistic companies that we are supporting. A third one is around youth and new voices. We committed 25 percent of the new money to the Council to artists and organizations that never got funding by the Canada Council to create a sense of renewal in the artistic sector. And finally, we made very clear commitments on the international front for international presence of Canadian artists and production of works by Canadian artists.
These are very clear goals that are part of that plan, and we aligned our investment to support those goals. The Canada Council is not in a situation of being passive, or just responding to the perceived needs of the artist and the arts organization. But what we are trying to do is to make investments that will have a lasting impact on our mandates, on the enjoyment of the arts by Canadians, and on the quality and the impact of the artistic and literary creation from sea to sea to sea.
LATHAM
Okay, so it’s 2018. That means the plan, as you said, is outlined until 2021. For you personally, what's one of the key things that you like to tick off to say that the plan achieved?
BRAULT
I think this plan will deliver what we committed for that five year cycle. And I think that beyond that, what will be really important is to think more and more, and act more and more with the perspective of sustainability. I'm making sure that we sustain those changes in those emerging voices and organizations. This question of sustainability is a daunting one, because there's always a sense that we need to put more and more public money in the system. My view is that artists and artistic organizations need to find new ways to collaborate more between themselves, need to find new business models and new connections with their communities to be able to be more resilient, and to have a more sustained way of working and achieving their goals. Sustainability is a big wish and a big goal for the future.
LATHAM
Fantastic, thank you for that. In undertaking this plan, you've gone from a 147 granting programs to just six funding programs to streamline things is pretty huge. How does the old funding model contrast with the new funding model, and how might that impact on organizations as they navigate through the new model?
BRAULT
I think the main difference between the past model and the new model is really that the new model is outcome-based. Instead of saying “okay, we have 150 programs to support every aspect of ten different theatre practices, and different ways of doing literature,” and all of that, and in fact just trying to maintain good theatre, good literature, good dance, orchestral music, and so on, we revised that writing to say “okay, we need to have programs that are supporting research and development, artistic creation, that are supporting international.” No matter what you want to present on the international stage, would it be theatre, or dance, or anything. It should be in one program, because we should be able to compare things, and we should be able to deliver the outcome. The outcome in that case is an international outreach of Canadian artists. We reorganized everything to achieve big outcomes, and the programs are now not narrow corridors, they are large corridors. It gives the artists and the artistic organization the possibility to be more supported on their own terms, as opposed to try to fit in very precise boxes that we had built over years.
I would say that our new model is less prescriptive than the last one. We are less in a position where we are telling precisely the artists, and the artistic organizations what to do to get funding. We are now saying to them “okay, if you want to achieve an artistic project, submit it in a program that is non-disciplinary and it’s for us at Canada Council to find a way to better support it.” It’s for us to adapt to the needs and to the quests of the artists and the artistic organizations, and not the other way around.
LATHAM
Fantastic. So basically, the change of the six funding programs you're saying will provide a broader scope for organizations to engage with.
BRAULT
I think so, a more flexible and nimble system, and a more evolved system to make sure that we do react quickly to the changes that are happening out there, notably because of the impact of digital. So yes, we think that the new model makes the Canada Council more relevant for the environment in which we operate now.
LATHAM
Wonderful, thank you for that. The Canada Council has also tripled the support for Indigenous artists. Can you speak to the vision behind this increase, and what outcomes you hope this will achieve? We made that decision in the context of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada. We announced that just before the final report had been released, and the idea was to recognize that in a very concrete way, this country has practiced what is called the equivalent of a cultural genocide with Indigenous people of this country. We consider that, as a public arts funder, we cannot support Indigenous arts and artists as if nothing happened. We are really in a process of reconciliation, and a process of changing the tide in the relationship, between nations in Canada and in the broader context of an internal decolonization. In that context, we felt that one way to do it was to augment proportionally the support we give directly to Indigenous artists for them to have more possibilities of expressing their vision of the world. It has been very well received. We feel that right now in Canada, Indigenous arts is probably one of the most vibrant portions of all the artistic creation in this country, and we think that it's bringing a perspective to how arts are embedded in the daily life that that is unique, and that should inspire the Canadian population, and every artist from any discipline, and any region in this country. It's a moment of our history that could change the future.
LATHAM
It also moves Indigenous art out of the tourism sector and into a relevant artistic engagement sector in its own right.
BRAULT
Yeah, it's putting that at the forefront of artistic creation, and also the forefront of the engagement of citizens on a daily basis with artistic creation, absolutely.
LATHAM
How do you balance the continuation of what worked well, and also making changes? And through the changing, preserving and honoring the historic art forms while making room for the new digital offerings that are hitting us at a great rate, and speeding things up in the arts world to a place that we have not engaged with before?
BRAULT
As you said, it's a question of achieving balance. There's no kind of a perfect recipe. What we try to do, for instance we committed that over the next five years we are moving the needle. In 2015, we had roughly 70 percent of our grants that would go to organizations on an ongoing basis. We decided that over the next five years, with the doubling of our funds, that we would move the needle to have in 2021 half of the grants that we are awarding going to organizations in what we call “core funding,” continuous funding. Half of the money, which is a lot, would go on projects. So, money that is engaged on specific artistic projects, and when the project is over, the money is coming back to the Council. So making sure that when we start any given year, we still have a lot of the billable resources for new projects, and new voices, and new experiments, and that the bulk of the money is not frozen to support the ongoing operation of permanent clients of the Council. It's a very radical decision, but it's a decision that allows us to both honor the more mature artistic voices that we have been supporting over the years, and at the same time making a real opening to new voices and new practices, new ways of doing things. We’re hoping that the new will be absorbed by the already existing and provoke renewal, and reinvention, and refoundation of of the artistic sector in Canada. We are at the beginning of that journey, but so far we can see that the artistic landscape is changing, and is reflecting more and more the real possibilities that we have in this country. Again, it's another very interesting journey for us.
LATHAM
That ties into cultural policy within Canada. Can you describe the role the Canada Council has in seeding our policy?
BRAULT
Canada Council is not a policy-making body. We're not the government, so we cannot craft, or vote, or decide cultural policies. But we consider that we need to be delivering public values, yes, and we have some kind of a policy-thinking approach. Even if there's no policy for the arts in Canada, we have an instrument, we have a mandate saying that the promotion of the enjoyment of the arts and the support of the production of the arts are important for the government. It gave us the mandate to do it. So without necessarily having a very precise cultural policy, we are developing and crafting our strategic plans. For instance, in the spirit of public good, and in the spirit of a very broad cultural policy, when we do something where we make an investment, we try to see what will be the impact beyond the specific recipient of that grant. What will be the impact of their community? What will be the impact on the Canadian presence worldwide? What will be that do? So in that way, the cultural policy is always on the back of our minds, but we formally don’t create and propose cultural policy. That's a responsibility of the government.
LATHAM
Alright, thank you for that. One of the things that I'm curious about is this area of inclusion, particularly given Canada's diverse population. How is Canada Council seeding policies or working to advance the objective of inclusivity in the arts, to engage with and embrace Canadians from the multicultural background walks of life that we have?
BRAULT
We do that mainly through two different things. One is we, as a funding criteria say, if you as an organization want to get funding from the Canada Council, you need to demonstrate in your grant application that not only do you use it to try to achieve excellent artistic work, but also that you do have plans – not only intentions, but plans – and that you're planning very concrete actions in order to reflect the diversity of your community in the governance of your organization, the programming of your organization, in the way you engage with the audience.
That's a very concrete way to advance more inclusion, but another way to do it is through a targeted investment. We have, in Canada, designated communities that are experiencing a systemic disadvantage. For instance, any organizations of official language in a minority situation, we make targeted investments. We just invest money to make sure that our most promising organizations that are at the forefront of diversity get a top-up support. Beyond the fact that they would be well-assessed like any other organization, they get special money to give them an advantage in a situation where they had experienced for years and years discrimination, or a lack of support.
LATHAM
Wonderful. That leads really nicely into the conversation around regeneration of cities. Prior to joining the Council, you were instrumental in shaping the cultural direction of the City of Montreal, arguably one of the most culturally accomplished places in Canada. How do you see arts and culture being used as a regeneration policy process, and how do you take that from a municipal level and intersect that with a national level?
BRAULT
It's an excellent question. As you said, I have been very active at the municipal level. Right now in Canada when we think about cultural investments, it's true that those investments could be made at the municipal level, at the provincial level, or at the federal level. What we try to do more and more is to have some kind of an awareness of what the other players have in the system, to make sure that the investments that are made have the biggest impact possible in a city and cities. It has been proven that the artistic activity and the cultural activity has a lot of impact in terms of creating trusting spaces, creating more security. It creates a sense of being a citizen. It creates a sense of engagement for the different forces of the civil society, so we at the federal level can be very precise. We invest to provoke regeneration in one city, but we are aware that our investment will have that impact if we work well and collaborate with the organizations on the ground and with the other funders. So that is happening. There is a network in Canada of arts funders, and there are regular exchanges and discussions to optimize public investment, in order to generate as many benefits as one can generate. And one of those benefits is certainly urban regeneration.
LATHAM
So in Canada, we've got the Creative Cities Network, and then in the U.K. We've got the U.K. City of Culture. Do you see those kind of as aligned and similar in the way that they are activating spaces to regenerate cities?
BRAULT
Yes, these are very important networks. It’s uneven, and depending on which year and all that, but they are important. I think that all the research, and all the thinking, and all the advocacy related to urban regeneration is really important. I think the argument is that it's not the only culture that provokes urban regeneration. But it has to be in the mix when you want to regenerate a city, you need to really think about how to make it more green, you need to think about mobility, transportation, you need to think about security, housing, and all of that. But in that big mix of ingredients that could provoke and sustain urban regeneration, I absolutely believe that arts and culture is one of the ingredients. I think that this awareness is more and more shared, and we will see a lot of positive impact of public investment to support arts and culture and in the future.
So those networks are important, because they help to argue for urban regeneration. Sometimes they help to measure what it is they contribute to the narrative of urban regeneration, and that's really important.
LATHAM
Wonderful. When we're talking about public engagement, specifically we want to talk about the Arts Across Canada program… Can you tell us about that program?
BRAULT
Yes, that program is specifically there to help support the presentation of arts and literature in Canada through, for instance, artistic or literary festivals. True touring, and true publishing. It's really a program that is there first and foremost to make sure that art is not only created, but also shared with Canadians, so that the grants that will be awarded in the context of that program will help to present artistic creation or literature in a way that is interesting, stimulating, inspiring, and that is engaging communities across Canada. We're not the only funder doing that. But we do it with the lens of engagement with the best of the best of arts and literature.
LATHAM
Great. And the Art Bank is another very interesting offering that engages the public, and is actually owned by all Canadians. Can you share more details about the app?
BRAULT
Yes, the Council created years ago and operates what we call the Art Bank. It's a collection of more than 17,000 works of arts and contemporary works of art. It's one of the largest public collections of Indigenous arts. By the way, that collection and the works of arts are rented to public institutions, to even private institutions, offices and all that, for a very reasonable price. It's a way to make sure that art is shown in public to people in their daily life. It could be the office, it could be a hospital, could be anywhere. So the Bank is very easy to find on the web, and you can go on the web and see what we have in the collection, search for the things you would like to see, have a sense of what the price is, and once you’ve made your decision that you want to rent, you can contact our staff and they will guide you to the moment where there will be a physical installation in your office or building.
LATHAM
So it's the full package, where you choose a piece of art and then Art Bank come and actually install the work in.
BRAULT
Exactly. We're not a museum, collecting and protecting those work of arts. We buy those works of art, and the artist knows that the intention is to make sure that there is a circulation of the pieces, constant circulation of those pieces, across the country for people to see and engage with.
LATHAM
Wonderful. And now we've just celebrated Canada's 150th birthday last year, and it was also the 60th anniversary for the Canada Council for the Arts. There were many projects that happened across the country to mark these occasions. Was there a highlight that you want to share of a specific initiative or project that left an impression with you?
BRAULT
For that occasion, we created a special program and the name was New Chapter. The idea was that we would fund a project of artistic creation, so new work, that would really challenge our industry, or question, or reflect about what it means to live in Canada today or in the future. So there was no obligation of celebrating an anniversary. It was more the idea of taking advantage of that anniversary to create a very important moment of artistic creation, with the hope that all the projects that we would support would create some kind of lasting artistic legacy for Canadians. We organized a big competition to get projects, and we got more than 2,000 projects coming from all over the country, 2,000 projects of artistic creation, and we decided to support 210 or so of those projects with significant grants. The idea was not to give everybody a little, small amount of money. The idea was to give a big amount of money to the best projects, really to give the possibility of thinking and acting bold. So many of those projects have already happened, a big portion of them are coming. We have musical work that has been created, plays, films, a lot of things that have been created. You can follow on social media with the hashtag #newchapter, and many of those projects coming to fruition. We invested $35million, and it has been one of the most important years ever in terms of direct support to a project of artistic creation in this country. We're very proud that we did it.
LATHAM
It's fascinating, I think it's wonderful and a great showcase of the talent that is in Canada. When you think about the next 100 years, or 50, and all the new technologies that are shaping the world, and the ones that are going to shape the world that we're really not aware of yet, what do you foresee as the biggest trends that will impact us moving forward? Both from the perspective of the artist and the public. For example, social media has fostered a sense of people being creators rather than just consumers. Is there anything you can see in the future that you think we need to be aware of and have on our radar?
BRAULT
In a nutshell – because that could be the subject of a book or a long conference – but in a nutshell, what I think is a challenge for the future, is that we are now at a point where for the first time in the history of humankind, we have the possibility of building a civilization from which human beings will be expelled. In the past, until today, human beings always imagined this civilization putting themselves at the center of it. Right now, with the machines, and the robots, and artificial intelligence and all of that, we are almost to the point that we want to put algorithms and machines at the center of our civilization and human beings at the periphery. I think it's a huge shift. It's a huge challenge. I think that it gives the artist and the arts a huge responsibility, and that responsibility is to preserve and affirm what I would call the profound human nature of creation. I'm not saying that it's a fight between the machines and the artists, or the algorithms and the artistic creation. But I think that artistic creation is more needed than ever, and it's needed because it's the best proof that we are still human beings, and that we still need to exist before and beyond the machines that are, more and more, trying to capture everything we do in order to predict what we should do.
Arts are unpredictable. Algorithms, and artificial intelligence is all about building the future by analyzing what you had done in the past. I think the arts are about building the future, and not necessarily a predictable future. I'm very optimistic in terms of the role of the arts, because I think it's more needed than ever, and we will realize that. More people are more isolated in their own bubble. We live in a world where everything is filtered to make sure that we hear what we think we should hear, and it will become a very boring world if we don't have the choice to challenge all that, disorganize all that, to short circuit that system.
LATHAM
I truly believe the arts are the core of us as beings, and how we function amongst all of that narrative of new technology and algorithms, as you’ve said, is going to be a challenge. Certainly for the generations to come, and how they find their voice in amongst all of that, for our artists especially. When you were at MacEwan University back in 2015 you gave a speech called “Reimagining Canada's Future Through the Arts,” which kind of touches on this stuff a little bit. You talked about taking risks, and being bold, and embracing the future in order to keep pace with change. From our conversation today, it looks like you've been doing your fair share of that in these areas, and what we've just talked about, and how we move forward, and what that means for us, and what that looks like. So in relation to all of that, what are the next things from Canada Council?
BRAULT
I think the next thing for Canada Council is to be able to play some kind of a top leadership role in society. I think that the next thing for the Council is to be perceived and to act as more than just funder, more than just an organization that awards funds to art projects, but as a real player that should be invited around the tables where discussions and decisions are made about the future of our society. I think earning that seat at the table is the goal and the next phase for the Canada Council. So being relevant, yes, and being able to participate and contribute to discussions that are going far beyond just arts funding. We just talked about the future, and the importance of arts in the world that is digital or even post-digital. I think all of that is a reason for trying to earn that seat at the table of important discussions and decisions.
LATHAM
How do you see Canada Council earning that right to have a seat at the table?
BRAULT
I think by being relevant in those conversations. So it's not to talk about ourselves, but really to see when there's a big issue in our society what it is that we can contribute. I'll give you an example of a moment where we did that, is when Canada announced its intention to welcome thousands of Syrian refugees. That was a national project, and the Canada Council came and said “okay, we think we can do something. We think that we could craft an initiative to support our clients – so, artistic organizations – to open their door and to welcome Syrian refugees as part of opening their doors and their hearts in this country for newcomers.” We organized it, and it became very relevant, and all of a sudden we were in conversations with social workers, with people in charge of security, with government, with local organizations. Because we were part of something that was not at the beginning an artistic matter, but more of a social project of welcoming refugees. I think that there will be more and more occasions like that, where we will come to the table and say “okay, this is important for our fellow citizens, and we think that as as artists, or as funders of artists, we could contribute in our own way and help achieve goals that are much bigger than just engagement with the arts.”
LATHAM
Yeah that's wonderful. As we wrap up is there anything else you'd like to add to the conversation?
BRAULT
No, I don't think so, it has been an interesting conversation, and we can continue.
LATHAM
Yeah very much so. And if Canada Council decides to run a conference on how we embrace new trends facing us, and with new technologies, I'm sure we'll all be there, because it certainly is something that we all have to think about. Simon, I’d really like to thank you for your time.
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LATHAM
It’s Annetta here in the studio with Katrina. That was an amazing interview with Simon, and there was so much in that interview, that we could be talking about it for weeks to come and even run a conference of it probably. Katrina what did you think of it?
INGRAM
It was a great interview. Absolutely mind-blowing. I think one of the interesting things that Simon mentioned is, what is the role of the Canada Council? That's something that I learned a lot about.
LATHAM
Yeah, very much so, and I think one of the things that he really did clarify is that the Council is not a policy-making body. That policy gets made at a government level, and then Canada Council is arm's length, and their role is to implement the policy rather than be the policy-makers.
INGRAM
That was so interesting, because I think from the outside, we look at them and think “they are government, aren't they?” So this distinction of being arm's length and not necessarily being a policy-maker is really interesting. Another thing that struck me is the role that Canada Council is playing on elevating Canada's place in the world. He talked about hosting this meeting in May for public arts funders of the Americas. I thought that was really interesting that we are taking that kind of a leadership role on the world stage.
LATHAM
Yeah, very important. He really talked about, with the funding and also moving forward, about how to get Canadian artists out there on an international platform, and how critical it is that we are in the dialogue that is international. That's really important to the building of our artists and our culture out there, and also the building of Indigenous artists was really important.
INGRAM
Absolutely. I felt really proud as a Canadian hear that.
LATHAM
Yeah, it was really important, and knowing that that was one of his real drivers was really important. The other thing that I was really impressed with was when he talked about the funding model that he changed, and how he really wanted to focus on new and emerging artists, and companies that haven't gotten funding before with the ability to create sustainability in those organizations. I think that's really important.
INGRAM
It was really brave of him to take that on, because that is a controversial area. It's an enormous area, I think of all the ripple effects that happen as a result of that. If you're a grant writer, and you understand the old system, all of a sudden you have this brand new system that you're working with. And I think it's caused a little bit of controversy in some of those established organizations. But at the same time, as you're saying, it's opened the door for all of these new organizations to potentially receive funding that's more outcome-based. So I really applaud the work that he's done on that. I think it's rather courageous of him.
LATHAM
Yeah, it was a fantastic interview, and what really seems to underpin his work is that arts and culture is part of our daily lives, and that truth and reconciliation does matter, and it is important. And that arts and culture is a place where we can actually have a dialogue around truth and reconciliation, and do it in a really respectful way. And also that as Canadians, we are important and we're important on a world platform. And I felt that it was fantastic.
INGRAM
So nice to hear that.
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This show was created by:
Executive Producer - Annetta Latham
Producer - Katrina Ingram
Technical Producer - Paul Johnston
Research Assistant - Rael Lockwood
Theme Music - Emily Darfur
Cover Art - Constanza Pacher
Latham, A. (Executive Producer). Latham, A (Host). (2018, May 28). Artful Conversations [Season 1: Episode 9]. Simon Brault. Podcast retrieved from https://www.artfulconversations.com/transcriptions/2019/1/4/ep-9-simon-brault
Artful Conversations is a production of Annetta Latham in partnership with MacEwan University. All rights reserved.