Part V: Long Term Goals - Accelerate
- Posted by Terry Rock on February 10th, 2011
Yesterday, I talked about our first arts development goal, "Incubate," in which we aspire to make Calgary a preferred location for artists in the first 10 years of their career.
Today, I bring you our second arts development goal, "Accelerate."
Before I dig into it, I have to say... this has been one of our biggest challenges. What is the relevance of our work to those that are already showing signs of, or on many measures, achieving great success? It is a lot easier to see how we matter to those who are just starting their careers, or in helping to introduce new people to the arts. For those already well on their way? We're pretty sure that there is no lack of frustration, that if not addressed, will result in Calgary losing these people to other cities that clearly demonstrate their support for high potential artists and arts organizations. Hence:
Goal 2: Accelerate
Our Aspiration: Enable excellence and innovation in high potential established artists and arts organizations.
Calgary is home to a fast-expanding number of excellent and innovative artists, arts organizations and festivals. Unfortunately, many of these artists and organizations continue to struggle to find presentation and creation venues, to find financial support for risk taking, and to build audiences. These high potential artists and organizations work in a system with severe limitations on available resources. The system does not adequately recognize or incent their potential and capacity for excellence. Those that do consistently excel put our city on the map artistically, build strong connections to the citizens of Calgary and build our reputation as a city. These individuals and organizations deliver the highest return on the investments we make because it is increasingly clear that the cultural dimension of our city’s reputation plays a crucial role in economic development, especially for the attraction of a skilled workforce and development of the tourism industry.
What’s missing? The prioritization of excellence and innovation within resource allocation decisions and program development is critical to ensuring that, within a competitive and limited system, investments and programs are directed to those with the highest potential. Risk capital to think big, develop audience, access to export channels, and partner with agencies working in tourism and city building will provide the support necessary to enable and accelerate the career path of high potential artists and organizations. Part of the identity of Calgary for its citizens and visitors should be a city of excellent and innovative artists and artistic experiences.
Accelerating individual artists is aimed at taking them from a stage of a having a working career as an artist (although this may not be self-sustaining) to a point where they have a fully self-sustained, growing career as an artist with the potential to export their artistic talent outside of Calgary.
Accelerating arts organizations is aimed at taking them from a stage of having a full year/season of self-sustaining activity to a point where they have a strong support network and organizational resiliency that allows them to take creative risks and build a strong reputation within the city and beyond.
Important elements for acceleration include: high quality space to create and present work, network of supportive arts administrators and related creative industry professionals, programs for life long learning and professional development, exposure to knowledgeable audiences, supporters, sponsors, and critics/media, and access to investments that support significant creative (and financial) risk taking.
Our ability to transparently select the artists and organizations to accerlate is one of our biggest challenges as we look to the future. We do not want to be in the position of "picking winners," but on the other hand, to ignore the fact that these artists and organizations have different needs, challenges and opportunities is also a mistake. I'm pretty sure that the keys will be a) transparency, b) fairness (don't put all of our eggs in this basket), and c) clearly demonstrating the overall benefits to the city and to the arts community of the work we do under this goal area.
That's what I think... what do you think? The comments are open!
I agree with you completely,
I agree with you completely, Terry.
Arts in Calgary (and anywhere else for that matter) should be about economics, marketing and branding just as much as it is about creativity.
A successful arts sector will come from the success of Calgary Arts Development in promoting artists' visibility, tapping into national and international tourism and making the community more aware of the value of its local art.
CADA's support of both artists and arts organizations should be by way of setting up the stage for an economically beneficial arts scene, that will ultimately increase its value to the community. This value can only be measured by the economic impact the arts community has on the community-at-large.