In 2014, ARCA commissioned Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte to examine the evolution of art publishing funding at the Canada Council for the Arts.

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.

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 »»

(Montreal, May 22, 2012) The Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Conference(ARCA) welcomes the publication of the Burgess Report, a study titled The Distinct Role of Artist-Run Centres in the Visual Arts Ecology by MDR Burgess Consultants. Commissioned by the Research and Evaluation Section of Canada Council for the Arts, the study’s goal is to provide the Canada Council, and by extension, the visual arts milieu, with a deeper understanding of the roles and characteristics of artist-run centres (ARCs).

In fall 2009, Dr. Guy Bellavance of INRS was mandated to undertake a critical review of existing literature on the visual arts in Canada. The results of this exhaustive study were published in winter 2011. Dr. Bellavance’s work should enable us to identify gaps in existing research on the visual arts, and find solutions to address these.

In the fall of 2009, in collaboration with our colleagues from the Independent Media Arts Alliance (IMAA), ARCA conducted a survey of working conditions in the artist-run centres’ network. The results of this study, the first of its kind on the national level, were intended to help workers of artist-run centres better communicate their needs »»

This survey was conducted by ARCA in the fall of 2007 at the request of CARFAC in order to establish the importance of artist fees paid by artist-run centres in relation to their overall budget.