Regarding amalgamating the Art Gallery (SAGA) and the Shuswap Arts Council:
Is there something wrong with that concept?
Stop and think. How is it possible for an arts council to amalgamate with another arts organization?
A community’s arts council is usually formed to benefit all of the visual and performing arts organizations and individual artists within its area. So how can it be amalgamated with only one organization and still perform the mandate for which it was originally intended?
Where would that leave all the other artists and cultural organizations?
How would they benefit from such an arrangement, especially if they were not using the new entity’s facility to exhibit or perform? Even if this new “organization” were to remain completely unbiased (which I am here assuming), and were to assist in promoting events outside its centre (which might be in direct competition for one of its own events), as well as assist with grants that compete with its own applications – how can it seem to be unbiased when it is so blatantly aligned elsewhere?
An arts council cannot benefit its community and be a proper cultural resource centre if it is solely aligned with one arts entity. It is in place to assist others, to guide others, to inform others, and sometimes… even to lead others. In the congratulatory comments of some and the remarkable silence of many, the true role of an arts council seems to have been misplaced.
Muriel Schubert
