Funder Focus: Donna Balkan and the Canada Council for the Arts
October 7, 2002
By Nicole Zummach
This month in our continuing series of interviews with some of Canada's
leading funders, we feature the Canada Council for the Arts,
which was established by parliament in 1957 to foster and promote the
study, production, and enjoyment of the arts. CharityVillage spoke with
senior communications manager Donna Balkan, about the council's
relationship with government, its impact on the career development of
artists, and the importance of investing in the arts.
CharityVillage: What does the council, as an
arm's length government agency, feel are its responsibilities, not
only to Canadian artists but also to the general public?
Donna Balkan: One of the things that I think is very important
to note is that when the Canada Council was founded in
1957, the intention
was always that it be established at arm's length from government. In
fact, in the Massey Commission Report, which was a Royal Commission
report that resulted in the creation of the Canada Council,
it was specifically
noted that a national arts funding agency should be arm's length and
that there should not be political interference in
decisions regarding
artists and organizations who get funding. So that was the intention
from the very beginning. Certainly the Canada Council's mandate has
not changed that much in the last 45 years.
If you look at our mission statement, which comes from the
Canada Council Act, it talks about supporting and promoting the
creation and production of works in the arts, and the enjoyment of
works in the arts. So, we really have a dual mandate. There is the
whole grants process, which provides financial support and services
to artists and arts organizations across the country, but we also
have an important role in promoting the arts and promoting the
importance of the arts with the Canadian public, an advocacy function
or an arts awareness function.
CV: How does being affiliated with government affect how
the council conducts its business and handle grants and
awards?
DB: Government has an effect on the Canada Council
to the extent that we are part of the Department of Canadian Heritage
portfolio. We report to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian
Heritage like other portfolio agencies, but we are not part of the
Department of Canadian Heritage. Our status is basically that of a
Crown Corporation, similar to the CBC or the National Film Board. We
can't say that we are not at all affected by government. After all,
our primary source of funding is a parliamentary appropriation, and
when I say it is our primary source of revenue, and not our only
source of revenue, it is because we also have a number of endowment
funds, primarily related to our prizes and rewards programs.
CV: Is your peer assessment process delivering
the impartiality and objectivity it was designed to deliver?
DB: Selection and evaluation of grant proposals has been done by
a peer assessment system since the very beginning in 1957.
We have approximately
120 different competitions every year, all with peer
assessment committees
of artists and specialist in the particular discipline or
arts practice
being assessed. If you take a look at an area like new
media, and what
is happening in the media arts, the changes are enormous
and constant.
So it is very important that the people who are making the
recommendations,
that are doing the assessing, are people who are knowledgeable about
the art form they are assessing, and are knowledgeable about current
trends and what is happening in the arts. It is that
knowledge and expertise
that we are seeking from our peer assessors. I don't think that can
be replaced by anyone.
CV: You mentioned the dynamic nature of media
arts. Is technology changing the face of the arts community?
DB: In the early years of Canada Council, film for
example, was supported under visual art, but as time went on and
areas like film, video, audio, and now of course new media grew, it
became clear to the council that there was a need to create a
separate media arts section that specializes in that area. Media arts
is now one of our fastest growing areas of application.
If you take a look at the art itself, technology is having
an enormous
impact and not just on artists who specialize in media arts. It has
influenced artists in a wide range of disciplines. For
example, at one
time way back in history when you were talking about visual arts you
were talking about painting and sculpture. Now when you
talk about visual
art, you are talking about a whole range of art practices. One thing
that I found very fascinating was a year ago at the 2001
Venice Biennial,
which is the world's most important and prestigious
exhibition of contemporary
visual art, Canada won a major award for a work called 'The Paradise
Institute' by two Lethbridge artists named Janet Cardiff and George
Bures Miller. That work was a multimedia work and it won a top prize
at what was traditionally considered a visual art exhibition.
If somebody asked me what I felt was the biggest, most
important trend
in the arts today, I probably would not say technology. I would say
multi-disciplinarity, because the artistic boundaries
between the artistic
disciplines are blurring. You can no longer say, 'well this is visual
art, and this is theatre, and this is music'. I think that technology
has been a major force behind the multi-disciplinarity that is taking
place, because artists in all disciplines are recognizing
that technology
has some very important uses. It also imposed certain challenges on
the artists, primarily related to intellectual property rights.
People are posting all sorts of things on the Internet, and
as we know
from the whole story of Napster with regard to music, there are some
very serious intellectual property issues. Intellectual property laws
and society's behaviour in the area of intellectual properties has to
adjust to this new world of technology, where things can be
disseminated
instantly. That can pose certain difficulties for artists, but on the
other hand, the ability to disseminate information about art through
technology is an amazing tool. For example, people who live
in a small
community that doesn't have an art museum can go online and learn all
about Canadian art and actually see works of art on the Internet that
they would not have had access to twenty years ago.
CV: The Art Bank celebrates its 30th anniversary this
year. Perhaps you could tell me about its importance to Canada and
Canadian artists.
DB: The Art Bank was created in 1972, and was
originally created
to rent art to government, specifically federal government agencies
and departments. That mandate has now been broaden somewhat and about
12% of the Art Bank's clients are in the corporate sector.
The Art Bank
has about 18,000 pieces of Canadian contemporary art and is
the largest
collection of its kind in the world. It is very important
for Canadian
artists because it purchases their art, and there is a
certain prestige
attached to having one or more works of art in the Art
Bank's collection
if you are a contemporary artist. It is also wonderful in
terms of creating
awareness about Canadian contemporary art because Art Bank art can be
found all over the country.
CV: In 1999 you conducted a study on the impact
of council grants on the lives and careers of grant recipients. What
were some of the key findings from that study?
DB:We do a lot of research. When people say research
and development
they always think about science and industry. The Canada Council is
also in the business of supporting research and development because
artists are researchers and developers, artists experiment, artists
take risks in the same ways as scientists do. The other thing that is
very important to us is the notion of investing in the
arts. It is not
just a question of giving someone a grant so they can go
paint a painting.
It is that we're investing in a career in the case of
individual artists,
or investing in an institution as in the case of an arts
organization.
That particular study was interesting because all of our information
before that study was very anecdotal. For example, Margaret
Atwood received
a Canada Council grant in 1969 when she was just starting
out as a professional
writer. She has said many times that the $7,000 grant we gave her in
1969 had an incredible impact on her career because it allowed her to
go on writing when she would not have been able to do so otherwise.
So we had all of this anecdotal information and we decided to conduct
a survey of individual artists who had received grants from
the Canada
Council. We asked them what impact these grants had made on
their careers
and what we found was that things had not changed much
since 1969. Artists
told us that it gave them the freedom to pursue their work.
It allowed
them artistic development, career development, and
educational opportunities,
because one of the things Canada Council grants are used
for is to pursue
further study for professional artists. All of this
basically confirmed
the anecdotal information that we had in the past, that even a small
grant can make a significant impact.
CV: A focus of concern among some arts organizations right
now is how to sustain and attract professional management
in the arts.
Is the council supporting professional development within
arts organizations?
DB: The council absolutely recognizes the importance of arts
management. It is extremely, extremely important. One of the things
our peer assessment committees look at when considering
operating funding
for an organizations is the way in which the organization is managed
because there is a very close relationship between the
financial sustainability
of an organization and the efficiency and effectiveness of
the organization's
management. We have a program in the theatre and in the
dance sections
called the Flying Squad which allows arts organizations in
those disciplines
to hire consultants that will give them advice on
management and administrative
issues. It is a very popular program.
Arts organizations have to do everything they can to ensure
their sustainability.
We all know, as well as anybody, that funding is very tight, and even
though the Canada Council's funding has been increased over the past
couple of years, the demand is also going up. We know that there is
a lot of competition for public sector funding, and that
there is also
a lot of competition for private sector funding. We would like to see
more private sector and individual philanthropic funding of the arts.
Although the Canada Council is constantly talking about the
importance
of public sector funding and we are clearly committed to
the importance
of public sector arts funding and think that the public sector should
take the lead, we also say that we cannot have a vital, dynamic,
and sustainable arts community without support from the
private sector,
both corporations and individual philanthropists.
CV: The Canada Council is an older and well-established
institution.
How does it keep itself vital and relevant to artists and
arts organization?
DB: Well part of that is the artists. You can't help but keep
yourself vital and relevant when you are around artists all the time.
As I said, artists are always at the forefront. They are
always keeping
us informed and because we work with artists it is our
business to always
be informed, and knowing, and moving, and finding out what is going
on. We have a board which changes, there is a certain
amount of continuity,
but there are always new people coming on. It is very important that
a lot of our staff are from the arts community. There are a
lot of people
with very strong professional arts backgrounds. They come out of the
arts community and some of them spend a couple of years
with the council
and then decide that they want to go back and devote more
time to their
art. So it's constantly moving but I think that the staff
and the board
see themselves as being very close to the arts community and we have
to be, because of the nature of our jobs.
Donna Balkan has been with the Canada Council for the Arts for the past
three years. Prior to that, she worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs
and International Trade and the Canadian Human Rights Commission. She has
also been a journalist for the Ottawa Citizen and CBC Radio. For more information
about the council, visit: www.canadacouncil.ca.
