A Forum on Independent Publishing at East of There, Saint John, NB

Montréal, 30 April 2013 – Ten years after Tiré à part/Off Printing, a symposium on publishing in artist-run centres, organised by Le Regroupement des centres d’artistes autogéré du Québec (RCAAQ), the Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Conference (ARCCC/CCCAA, aka ARCA) is proud to announce that, in recognition of recent shifts and developments in independent art publishing, it will be organizing a forum on the topic of Independent art writing, production and circulation as part of East of There, an expanded meeting of  visual art professionals to take place at the New Brunswick museum from June 20-23, 2013. A detailed schedule of the event is available here.

Building on previous meetings that have taken place both at Canada Council and at the New York Art Book Fair, and, in order to fully benefit from the collective intelligence of our expanded network, ARCA has set aside some funds to invite representatives from other artist-run centres and independent publishers to join in an exchange on innovative approaches used to produce and disseminate writing in the visual arts. This focus was chosen as a means to draw attention to the crucial role that writing and publishing play in joining and articulating the many facets that make up the visual arts.

In addition to the forum, ARCA  is proud to join forces with Artexte to present e-artexte, a unique open access digital repository for documents in the visual arts in Canada. It is a new on-line service offered in keeping with the world’s leading research libraries and universities. The e-artexte self-archiving repository caters to the needs of museums, galleries, artist-run centres and other publishers/authors in the visual arts community who are looking for ways to make their publications more widely accessible via the Internet. Free access is a founding principle of the e-artexte service. To introduce the new service, Corina MacDonald of Artexte will offer participants attending the forum on art writing and independent publishing an introduction to the platform as well as answer questions on the topic of open access.

This gathering also offers members of artist-run centres the opportunity to meet again, as suggested by those in attendance at the plenary meeting held last October in Vancouver during the Institutions by Artists convention. Although the funds presently at our disposal cannot support everyone, it is clearly ARCA’s intention to continue to work on facilitating annual nation-wide meetings for the purpose of exchanging practical and theoretical knowledge and strategies around shared concerns. A compendium of the forum will be circulated throughout the network at a later date. To attend on a voluntary basis, please REGISTER HERE before Friday JUNE 7.

The meeting is organized to coincide with the annual assemblies of the Association of Artist-Run Centres from the Atlantic (AARCA) and Atlantic Provinces Art Galleries Association (APAGA) in partnership with the Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation, a private foundation serving the visual arts in New Brunswick. Participants will mingle with representatives from the Atlantic region’s visual arts milieu and attend shared events, including The John Weldon Humphrey Forum[1] and a panel discussion titled “Charisma or Curse? – Regionalism in Canadian Art”, organised by the Sheila Hugh MacKay Foundation featuring artist Léopold Foulem, Amish Morrell, Editor of C Magazine, Kegan McFadden, director of Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg, and ARCCC director, Anne Bertrand. The StrathButler Award ceremony will take place on Friday June 21 when a prize of $25,000 will be awarded to a New Brunswick artist.

East of There »/ À l’est de là is co-presented by the Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation, APAGA, AARCA, ARCCC and Third Space, the only artist-run centre for contemporary art in Saint John. The Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Conference (ARCCC/CCCAA) is a Canadian organization that represents – by way of the regional associations that form its membership – approximately 170 artist-run centres and collectives in cities and towns across the country. The members include the following associations: Alberta Association of Artist-Run Centres (AAARC), Association of Artist-Run Centres from the Atlantic (AARCA), The Aboriginal Region (ABO), Artist-Run Centres and Collectives of Ontario (ARCCO), l’Association des groupes en arts visuels francophones (AGAVF), Manitoba Artist-Run Centres (MARC), Pacific Association of Artist-Run Centres (PAARC), Plains Association of Artist-Run Centres (PARCA) and Le Regroupement des centres d’artistes autogérés du Québec (RCAAQ).

Artexte is an information centre located in Montreal whose unique collection covers the visual arts from 1965 to the present, with emphasis on the art of Québec and Canada. Artexte is committed to the understanding and the advancement of the visual arts through reliable information sources. Its primary goal is the study and the development of material that documents the field of contemporary art.

Corina MacDonald is an information specialist and developer. She completed a Masters degree in Library and Information Studies in 2008 at McGill University, with a specialization in knowledge management. Her professional interests include the role of open content, technologies and standards in community and capacity building, electronic publishing and digital heritage. She worked as a heritage information analyst at the Canadian Heritage Information Network from 2008 to 2010 before beginning work as an independent consultant for digital cultural projects. She is currently the Project Manager for the e-artexte repository for visual arts publishing, and a freelance webmaster and trainer.

Info : Anne Bertrand (ARCA) 514-730-6129