ARCA invited to present artist-run centres to members of Spill-PROpogation

Montréal, 9 July, 2015 – On June 25, Anne Bertrand was interviewed by Tiphaine Girault, artist and Executive Director of Spill PROpagation for a series of videos to present artist-run centres to artists from the Deaf community looking to access mainstream dissemination networks in all arts disciplines. The interview covered the different exhibition venues in the visual arts, understood, in this context, as belonging to the mainstream hearing exhibition system. The purpose of the videos is to demystify the operating and programming methods typically used in ARCs, and describe some of the requirements of professional exhibition practices. Questions focused on the qualifications of professional artists and sources of income, on applying for exhibitions in response to calls for proposals, on preparing an exhibition proposal, on professional development, copyright and contracts. For my part, the interview offered some insight into the challenges faced by artists from the Deaf community but also, on the potential to expand on our own practices in response to artists from all cultural minorities.

The video series, translated into ASL will be available in 2015-2016, and was made possible with funding from the Equity office of the Canada Council for the Arts’ program for organisational development, a program which will regrettably be eliminated under the new funding model.