Kristin Cheung, Development Officer at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver calls for Arts Managers to identify staff, volunteers and interns who have different perspectives, who are ambitious, who want to collaborate and build mentorship opportunities in order to build stronger community engagement for intercultural relations. She argues that this approach will flip the current hierarchy and have these staff members teaching Arts Managers on intercultural relations. Talk presented at Intercultural Relations in Arts and Cultural Management Practice, the fourth seminar of an AHRC funded research network, Brokering Intercultural Exchange: Interrogating the Role of Arts and Cultural Management. The network is based at Queen's University Belfast (PI Victoria Durrer) in partnership with Heilbronn University (Co-I Raphaela Henze). www.managingculture.net

1. Arts Managers as Incubators
Kristin Cheung
Brokering Intercultural Exchange
November 17, 2017

2. Canada’s diversity
Visible Minority
Represent 22.3% of
Canada's population.
7,674,580 individuals were
identified as belonging to the
visible minority population as
defined by the Employment
Equity Act.
Municipal stats
Immigrants represented this
population:
● 46.1% of Toronto
● 40.8% of Vancouver
● 23.4% of Montréal
Trends
55.7% to 57.9% of all
immigrants in Canada would
be born in Asia by 2036 --
largest visible minority group

3. Formal
Institution funded:
➔ Ontario Arts Council
◆ Native Earth Performing Arts
● Animikiig Creators Unit
➔ Canada Council for the Arts
◆ Sector Development
● Project SAT
➔ Toronto Arts Council
◆ Platform A
● Project 40 Collective
Informal
Grassroots organizing:
● Asian Canadian Writers
Workshop Society (ACWW)
● Ricepaper magazine
● Hapa-Palooza
● The Future is you and me

4. The Future
Practical skills
Mentorship
● Building Leadership
● Grantwriting
● Finance (Vancity
Credit Union)
● Collaboration &
Relationships
● Marketing
Micro-grants
Sponsors are teachers
Vancity Credit Union is the
sponsor of the program but
also teaches the Financial
literacy workshops
Projects
Examples of projects and
networking opportunity for
participants for both students
and teachers

5. The Future is you and me

6. The Future is you and me Sample Space podcast (Diana Wong)
● Worked with The Future cohort
participants in all aspects from
interviews to illustrators
● Focused on the perspectives,
stories, and values of women,
people of color, LGBTQ
community members,
immigrants.
● Latest podcast: Asian American
Woman & Our Sexuality (taboo
subject for most)

7. The Future is you and me
Challenges:
Alternative Funding
● Sources outside the main government agencies, how sustainable is corporate funding
Definition of Diversity:
● “I noticed no Indigenous women, Latinx Women, or South Asian. I think this program would be greatly improved
with women who came from a wider range of backgrounds!”
Building more dialogue:
● “more discussion about the struggles we face being WOC who want to pursue the arts. (Feminism, disappointing
parents, etc.)”
Legacy / Founder’s syndrome
● Already thinking about passing the program to new / young facilitators