FLOW TILLA THRILLA by Hank Bull

Read « FLOW TILLA THRILLA », keynote remarks delivered by HANK BULL at the opening of Flotilla, the biennial gathering of artist-run centres from across Canada in Charlottetown, on September 23, 2017.

« What brings us together if not a strategy?

In 1986, ANNPAC, as ARCA was known back then, organized an international conference called “Strategies for Survival” that brought artists together from Poland, El Salvador, Japan, Germany, many countries, to talk about the different ways artists get by, negotiate censorship, confront persecution. Looking back even further, to the beginnings, it is interesting to note that the Canadian network of artist-run centres took shape more or less at the same time as the Cultural Revolution in China. It was born of a strategy for revolution. The idea of revolution was very much abroad in the land in the late 1960s, and, some would argue, it is back with us again today. » (Excerpt)