Next Generation Dialogues

During the first half of 2007, the Canada Council, provincial and territorial arts funders and certain municipalities brought together close to 200 artists and arts administrators, aged 18 to 30, to engage in a conversation about their work, challenges, and vision for the future. Nine Dialogues with the next generation of artistic leaders were held in all regions of the country. Each generated substantive discussions on emerging and evolving areas of practice, training and career development needs, the impact of the arts on communities and the role of arts funding in supporting young artists and administrators.

In addition to the dialogues, the Council and its partners held six consultation group sessions with youth of the same age group to discuss their attitudes towards and participation in the arts.

The link to the full report on these discussions is available below. The Council and its provincial and territorial funding partners are reviewing the extensive input, which includes a broad range of ideas. For funders, some of what they heard is familiar territory but there are also new ideas and a fresh perspective on career challenges particular to this generation.

The Canadian Public Arts Funder network (which includes the Council and all provincial and territorial arts funders) discussed this report at its annual meeting in November 2007. This consultation fed into the Canada Council’s 2008-2011 Strategic Plan (released Oct 2nd) and other provincial and territorial planning exercises.

Because of the open format of the Dialogues, some of the suggestions fall outside the mandate of arts funders. As a result, the Council shared the report with other organizations that might be in a position to respond to the suggestions that were raised.