This study titled The Visual Arts Landscape in Canada as seen through CADAC 2011-2012, and prepared by the Research and Evaluation Office of the Canada Council for the Arts provides many answers while also raising a few questions. We learn that museums receive 88% of public financing, or $128,400,000 while artist-run centres receive only 10%, or $14,600,000. Budgets for the 88 artist-run centres reporting to CADAC do not exceed $750,000 a year, which is also the case of 58 museums and public galleries; however 65 of these institutions have budgets ranging from $750,000 to $7M.

The members of the Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Conference met recently to debrief the results of the latest Artist-Run Centres multi-year operating program peer evaluation for 2014-2017. The following is an overview of their observations and the basis for further discussions and actions.

The “Questionnaire” and “Notes on Space” produced for the workshop are offered here under a Creative Commons licence (free to share, but with attribution and no derivative works) as a preliminary, rather than prescriptive toolkit in keeping with the ‘case by case’ reality of facilities undertakings.

Recently, Artexte has developed a unique open access digital repository for documents in the visual arts in Canada called e-artexte. The Publisher’s Toolkit, shared here in ARCA’s resource page, provides an introduction to the platform, a user’s guide as well as additional information and resources.

What riding is your centre located in? Have you started thinking about our new government’s promise to double the budget of the Canada Council for the Arts? The following resource is adapted from the Canadian Arts Coalition’s website. Arca encourages members of the artist-run community to adapt and personalize the material produced for the 2014 Arts Day on the Hill campaign, and adapted by ARCA, to engage with local politicians. The topic for the 2014 pre-budget committee hearings was “maximizing the number and types of jobs for Canadians.” This topic remains a top priority so take the opportunity to highlight recent statistics on employment in the artist-run network, and, to reiterate the Canadian Arts Coalitions recommendations for the federal budget 2016. Once again, Arca thanks the Coalition’s volunteers for developing and sharing this material.

ARCA is proud to announce the upcoming publication of PERFORMANCE ART PRESENTATION IN CANADA TODAY, a summary of the LIVE Retreat minutes, Vancouver October 9 & 10, 2012, in INTER, ART ACTUEL – #115 fall issue, prepared by Stacey Ho and Randy Gledhill with the support of the Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Conference / La Conférence des collectifs et des centres d’artistes autogérés (ARCCC/CCCAA, aka ARCA).

La Liste is published every two weeks by L’Association des groupes en arts visuels francophones ( AGAVF ) in collaboration with Jean-Pierre Caissie. La Liste presents news from the association’s membership located in Manitoba, Ontario, New-Brunswick and Nova Scotia and compiles calls for proposals in the visual and media arts, performance, public art etc. La Liste was launched to promote »»

In this interview, artist Julie Ault, cofounder of Group Material, active from 1979-1996 in New York and internationally, speaks of her experience leading a master class with non-profit cultural workers in a day long reflection on alternative art spaces. Group Material is remembered as a not-for-profit organization that emphasized collaborative and socially engaged artistic practices. Drawing from her lived experience as a participant, and her later role as the ad hoc historian for the group as editor of Show and Tell: A Chronicle of Group Material (2010).

The arcpost resource centre   includes: 772 links to artist-run centres and other independent arts organisations from Canada and around the world An Artist-run culture reading list as a downloadable bibliography in PDF format of over 130 book and journal references to artist run culture, alternative pedagogies, institutional critique, economics and artist self-organization compiled by Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte »»

ARCA has recently agreed, along with the museum associations (CMA and CAMDO) to extend the CARFAC fee schedule for another three years with yearly increases of 3%, until 2015, for a cumulative increase of 9,27%. Expanding on this, the ARCA membership is in agreement with the principle that fees should be paid, and be subject to annual cost »»