Art publishing advocacy work begun years ago has recently culminated in the production of a letter to Simon Brault, Canada Council’s new CEO, signed by over 70 individuals from the art publishing community. The letter is the outcome of a networking meeting held in Montreal November 7-8, 2014, where a loose knit group of independent cultural producers, directors of artist-run centres and university art galleries among others proposed to work under the umbrella of TXT – The Canadian Art Publishing Network / Le réseau canadien de l’édition en art. The letter was produced to alert Council’s new leadership to the unresolved status of Canadian art publishing, located in a blind spot somewhere between the Visual arts and Writing and Publishing sections, and the ensuing decline of support dedicated to this essential and highly specialized activity.
Related advocacy for art publishing includes promoting the Vancouver Art Book Fair by urging Canadian independent art publishers to participate in this annual fall event as well as supporting l’Association des groupes en arts visuels francophones (AGAVF)’s L’art visuel s’écrit, a professional development initiative intended to encourage writing and publishing among artists and curators in the francophone communities outside of Québec.
In addition to this, the following resources are currently in development: a toolkit for the production and dissemination of publications in collaboration with ARCA’s scribe Gina Badger as well as a series of thematic bibliographies of publications produced in artist-run centres, curated by Mariane Boucheix-Laporte.
Information: Anne Bertrand info(at)arccc-cccaa.org
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