The Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Conference / (ARCA), in partnership with the Independent Media Arts Alliance (IMAA), is proud to launch What Is an Artist-Run Centre?, a didactic video written and directed by former ARCA director Anne Bertrand, is an introduction to artist-run culture: its origins, purpose, operations, users, and services.
Artist-run centres are an essential part of the wider arts system and represent an important professional network for artists at every career stage. This infrastructure of some 180 organizations, operated in the majority by artists and supporting new and innovative practices in the arts, has exerted a significant impact on the cultural ecology of Canada and around the world. Clearly, this short documentary cannot tell the full story of this heritage. Neither can it represent every organization in the broader artist-run network, nor acknowledge by name every artist, cultural worker, historian, educator, curator, or preparator who has contributed to these organizations’ notoriety or benefitted from their support for nearly fifty years.
What Is an Artist-Run Centre? emphasizes the role, still not widely known, that artist-run centres have played, and continue to play, in Canada’s culture and heritage, and why these organizations deserve to be supported.
Support was provided by the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Strategic Initiatives component of the Canada Cultural Investment Fund, without which this project would not have been possible.
