When culture goes corporate, Canada’s creativity suffers

Fifteen years ago I worked in the private sector as a proposal writer for an I.T. services firm. I sat in board meetings with some pretty high-level people. And much of the conversation involved words like “export,” “delivery of services,” “marketability,” and “strategic positioning.” What’s disturbing is that I now sit on arts and culture boards and they use the same language. Not so long ago “arts and culture” was all one needed to say when talking about the country’s story-tellers, actors, film makers, dancers, artists, poets, and musicians. Everyone knew what you meant. Then it became “the cultural sector,” now the buzzword is “cultural industries.” What’s behind this shift? It started innocently enough. During the recession, governments cut back on funding for the arts as part of an overall debt reduction strategy. But the exception became the norm, forcing the arts community to look elsewhere for money. Soon corporate sponsorship became the mainstay for many arts organizations… READ MORE