remix, vancouver
/The Alliance for Arts & Culture's Artists' Legal Outreach program and the Open Education Conference present:
remix, vancouver
a creative copyright conversation CCC
Read MoreThe latest news on BC's arts, culture and heritage sector.
Gaming Grants & Arts Council Update
/Two announcements from the Provincial government received yesterday gave some hope for organizations awaiting their gaming commission grants, but have raised more questions than they answered.
Read MoreChanges to the website
/As part of our ongoing commitment to provide leading-edge service to our community, the Alliance for Arts & Culture is proud to present the first phase of our ambitious plan to transform our website into an online nexus for arts and culture activities in Metro Vancouver.
What’s different?
Read MoreMessage from the Executive Director
/Like many of you, I’ve been on vacation for the past few weeks, and this week returned to an inbox overflowing with email and dozens of calls to return. How quickly things change! As I settle back in, I want to address some of the challenges facing the community - the cuts to the BC Arts Council, the uncertain future of the gaming funds, the HST - and let you know what the Alliance is doing.
Read MoreDirect Access grants
/There is a great deal of uncertainty around the Direct Access grants managed by the Gaming, Policy and Enforcement branch. As was reported by the Vancouver Sun and the Georgia Straight, the Province has frozen those funds and is currently undergoing a review of the program.
Read MorePossible New Performance Space at Trout Lake
/Hilary Davis, who works for the Roundhouse Community Arts & Rec Centre and as a Program Assistant for the Arts & Culture office of the Vancouver Park Board is hoping to get some quick responses from the community regarding a new proposed space at the Trout Lake Community Centre. "Construction for the new centre will begin right after the Olympics next April and we are advocating for a new, albeit rather small rehearsal/workshop presentation space... Our next building committee meeting is on Aug.13th so we are hoping to get some feedback by then to support the new space.
Read MoreCity Council
/The Alliance was at City Hall on Tuesday to show our support for Vancouver 125, a celebration of the city’s 125th anniversary (which falls in 2011) that would have a strong arts component. It also gave us a unique opportunity to request Council’s support in lobbying the Province to reverse the cuts to the BC Arts Council. While there, we had the opportunity to follow the Council’s deliberations on what to do about the density bank.
Read MoreMeeting with Minister Krueger
/We have just returned from a frank and productive meeting with Minister Krueger at his Vancouver office. It was an excellent opportunity to communicate the concerns of our community to the new Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, and to offer to help him in trying to reverse the cuts to the BC Arts Council. He wanted everyone to know that both he and the Premier are both very committed to the arts, and that they will do their utmost to ensure that the community is not "hung out to dry" next year when the supplemental funding runs out.
Read MoreThe Globe and Mail
/This article was posted on the Globe and Mail's website today at 5:05pm EDT:
Read MoreCopyright Consultations
/As you may know, there are sweeping changes happening to the Federal government's copyright legislation. The Government of Canada recently (and quietly) launched a consultation process that has included regional roundtables and town hall meetings. Unfortunately, the roundtable in Vancouver has come and gone, but there is an opportunity to weigh in on the issue online through the Copyright Consultation website. Here is what the website has to say:
Read MoreNew Director of Communications
/The Alliance for Arts & Culture is thrilled to announce the appointment of Vancouver-born Kevin Dale McKeown to the position of Director of Communications. Kevin succeeds Peter Boychuk, who will be leaving the organization in August to pursue his MFA in Playwriting at the University of Victoria.
Read MoreMy departure
/As most of you know by now, I am leaving the Alliance for Arts & Culture in August. I have the unique opportunity to return to my first love, theatre, by doing my MFA in Victoria under the tutelage of the incomparable Joan MacLeod, one of Canada's finest playwrights. Although I am saddened to leave the Alliance and my wonderful colleagues behind, I am very excited to begin this new chapter in my life.
Read MoreLet's keep those letters coming!
/A big shout out to the many artists and arts organizations who have sent letters to Minister Krueger in the past few days. To all those organizations who haven't participated yet... now is the time to act. We all know how much we depend on the BC Arts Council, and how damaging the 40% cut will be to our organizations and artistic practice.
Read MoreFor immediate release
/Help spread the word. Send this release to anyone you know in media. We need to make some noise on this issue!
Arts community extremely concerned by cuts to the BC Arts Council
The arts and cultural sector in British Columbia is facing an imminent crisis. The Service Plans for the next two years show a 40% reduction in funding for the BC Arts Council. The BC Arts Council is the largest funding body in the province; last year, more than 224 communities throughout British Columbia depended on it for support.
"The impact to the province will be devastating," said Amir Ali Alibhai, the Executive Director of the Alliance for Arts & Culture. "The BC Arts Council supports a sector that employs 80,000 people and generates $5.2-billion annually. It is bigger than the forestry and fishing industries combined. At a time when the government is doing everything they can to create and retain jobs, why are they implementing measures that will trigger layoffs and cause organizations to reduce programming?"
Read MoreOpen Video Conference
/In June, Martha Rans, coordinator of the Artist legal Outreach program, attended the Open Video Conference held in New York. The conference was about online video technology and related public policy issues.
Here’s an interview with Brett Gaylor, the director and creator of RiP! A Remix Manifesto, which was screened at the OVC and is described by Macleans as "... a knockout. Rip is a dazzling frontal assault on how corporate culture is using copyright law to muzzle freedom of expression."
Read MoreAn open letter to Kevin Krueger
/As you know, during the cabinet shuffle the Honourable Bill Bennett was supplanted by the Honourable Kevin Krueger, MLA for Kamloops-South Thompson, as Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts. We have written the following letter to Mr. Krueger, whose Ministry is facing a forty percent cut in the service plans for the next two years.
Read MoreVancouver Arts Summit: Arts Advocacy
/This is my overview of the session Arts Advocacy: Building Bridges to Strengthen our Sector, which took place at the Vancouver Arts Summit in the afternoon of June 26. Again, apologies to anyone I misrepresented.
This session was moderated by the Alliance's Amir Ali Alibhai, who wanted to come away with new ideas by the end of the session. He started out by posing a question that had been nagging at him lately. Often, he said, at events like the Summit there is a lot of discussion about the "arts community" - but what is this really? Is there an arts community? Do we work together enough, communicate enough, and gather enough to even call ourselves a community?
The panel consisted of Alan Franey from the Vancouver International Film Festival, Vivienne Taylor from Fashion High, Paul Sontz from Tourism Vancouver, Jean-François Packwood from Conseil culturel et artistique francophone de la C.-B., Janet Leduc from the Heritage Vancouver Society and Elka Yarlowe and Music BC. Everyone introduced themselves and discussed the advocacy challenges for their individual disciplines. Unsurprisingly, issues and challenges were very similar across the disciplines - all the more reason that we should be working more collaboratively. But more on that later.
Read MoreVancouver Arts Summit: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences
/This is a guest post by the Alliance's summer student, Angela Friesen. It is reproduced from her blog, The New Is The True.
I was lucky enough to spend the past two days at the Vancouver Arts Summit (thanks to my great summer job at the Alliance for Arts and Culture). The entire thing was outstanding, but yesterday was especially so. I went to a super fantastic (super tense) panel discussion on "new media, new tools, new audiences".
I've come to be pretty disenchanted with the term new media - to my mind there is no longer any such thing; it's not something separate from the way we live our every day lives. Everything we do is through "new" media -- plus what comes next? Do we get new new media when what we have now becomes old new media? Newer media? Terminology aside, the panel discussion was fascinating, due to the range of voices. At one end of the spectrum was Jerry Wasserman, who seems to have gotten into the internet out of necessity more than excitement, and still seems a little skeptical about the whole thing, and at the other was Kris Krug, who had more than enough enthusiasm about and faith in the digital world to get most attendees really excited about the possibilities that come along with expanding your online presence.
I could really feel the tension between the two perspectives - the traditional media who don't trust the internet vs. the younger users/creators who seem to have integrated it into every part of their lives - but that tension made me feel so connected to my love for technology and media and newness, and the fact that at its core all media, new and old, is about connection and learning.
Read MoreVancouver Arts Summit: Diane Ragdale's keynote address
/Below is a link to Diane Ragsdale's effervescent keynote address, Surviving the Culture Change:
